Senate Committee Accuses NDDC Of Undermining Accountability

Senate Committee on Public Accounts has accused the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) of failing to take matters of accountability seriously.

The lawmakers made the allegations on Wednesday following an investigation into the allegation of corruption in the award of contracts by the commission.

Chairman of the committee, Senator Andy Uba, at the meeting with the acting Managing Director of the NDDC, Mrs Ibims Seminitari, also accused the agency of failing to keep proper records of its income and expenditure.

The committee also expressed displeasure at what it described as the “persistent inability of the NDDC boss” to honour the invitations to appear before the committee and furnish members with details of contracts awarded and its expenditure.

On her part, Mrs Seminitari promised to make all necessary documents available to the committee within the stipulated time.

She had taken over the baton of the NDDC leadership from Sir Bassey Dan-Abia in December 2015.

Speaking shortly after receiving the handover notes from her predecessor at the commission’s headquarters at that time, Seminitari said her mission was to complete all existing projects.

The former Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communication added that she had a responsibility to God and President Muhammadu Buhari to drive development in the Niger Delta region.

Agitations in the region have continued to rage, with militant groups springing up and destroying oil facilities in the region.

Some of the groups allege that the region had been ignored, with some areas getting little developmental projects to show for the crude oil the area is blessed with.

The Commission was set up to address the challenges of infrastructure in the region, but most communities still lack basic amenities, with their farmlands and waters polluted due to mining activities.

The government had some months back launched a clean-up campaign in Ogoni Land, one of the communities highly affected by oil spill.