In the next few days, The Nigerian Senate-finally-will be unraveling one of the most financially disastrous wreckage of the country, the disappearance of over N70.5 billion contract mobilisation money provided to 1,733 contractors by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) between 2008 and 2012.
Assistant director, Public Accounts Committee (PAC) division in the Auditor-General’s office, Emmanuel Akpan, while making submissions before the Senate Committee on Public Accounts (PAC) in Abuja recently, said the Auditor- General’s office, based on its findings; the “real value of contracts upon which monies have been collected by NDDC contractors during the period under review, as at the time of auditing, was N70.4 billion and not N11 billion the NDDC office is claiming now.”
NDDC with allocation exceeding N2.5 trillion since inception has stacked up a litany of vile allegation of contract manipulation and bogey projects. The first major threat to probe the Commission was in 2012 when the Senate Committee chairman on Public Accounts, Ahmad Lawan, told the country that the committee was worried that after “allocations of billions of naira to the commission over the years, there is no commensurate development in the area.”
“Everything the Commission has done since it was set up has brought nothing new, but speculations and suspicion. We knew some of the contracts were merely on paper,” says one social commentator familiar with the workings of the Commission.
This type of despair, some say may have resonated with members of the Senate Committee on Niger Delta led by Peter Nwaoboshi (Delta State, Nigeria) and prompted the latest focus and visit to the commission’s headquarters Wednesday March 2, 2016, to begin an audit process. The Senate Committee members will be looking into the Commission’s books, its budgeting and contract awarding system, from its inception to date.
The chairman who led the committee members on a visit to the Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, said the committee would also be addressing critical issues relating to the budget of the NDDC, which is primed for consideration by the Senate.
What is not clear is whether any findings from the latest rounds of probe will lead to a broader corporate governance procedure in the Commission’s operations and bring about transparent project implementation procedures.
theG&BJournal
