The committee, in its report submitted to the President at the State House on Tuesday, indicted the NDDC management of complicity in the issue of abandoned projects, failure to recover funds using appropriate government agencies such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offenses Commission.
The report covered 2005 to 2011.
According to Jemide, a total of 609 projects spread across three states – Edo, Cross River and Rivers – were inspected by the committee.
He said 222 (36.5%) were completed, 102 (16.7%) were ongoing and 285 (46.8%) were abandoned at various levels of completion.
The critical issues raised in the report were:
(I) The abandonment of a large number of projects and the refusal of NNDC to address the issue of abandoned projects with no evidence of any attempt to recover the funds using appropriate government agencies such as EFCC and ICPC.
(II) The failure of the NNDC to complete all Civic Centre projects over an operational period of 12 years.
iii) The failure of NDDC to complete all shoreline protection projects over an operational period of 12 years.
iv) The failure of NDDC to complete all University Hostel Projects over an operational period of 10 years.
v) It is noted that the federal government has allocated billions of Naira on the projects listed in ii-iv above and above as spent these monies.
vi) The unjustifiable introduction of astronomical variations on the contracts sums of most projects awarded by the NDDC over short periods of time. Some of these variations are effected prior to project commencement.
vii) The deliberate exclusion of some meg projects from the list of projects submitted to the Presidential Monitoring Committee for evaluation.
viii) The refusal of NDDC to sanction incompetent contractors such as Messrs Fountain Construction Company Ltd handling the Eket-Ibeno road in Akwa IBM state. It was noted that the incompetence of this contractor led to the strike action embarked upon by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, Mobil Producing Nigeria Branch (PENGASSAN-MPN) on 28th August 2012.
ix) most of the water projects embarked upon by NDDC are non-functional.
x) The approval and execution of some projects that are completely outside the statutory operational scope of the NDDC e.g Renovation of port harcourt club and study on the generation of electric power from gully erosion sites amongst others
(xi) The refusal of NDDC to provide accounting records and records of beneficiaries of NDDC mass transit boat and bus scheme embarked upon since 2004.
(xii)The uncooperative attitude of NDDC management to the committee by refusing to provide records of some critical financial transactions of the commission such as the bank statements, payment vouchers, and their supporting documents, the stores records and accounts and
(xiii) The insesitive response of the NDDC management to the problems of contractors as related to the execution of their projects.
The committee chairman therefore enjoined President Jonathan to, “in view of the negative weight of the above issues on the overall development of the Niger Delta region…. appreciate Mr. President’s intervention.”
Speaking, President Jonathan promised to look into the report and ensure that things are correctly done for the future of the Niger Delta.
He said: “The NDDC was set up because of the militancy in the Niger Delta.
“The feeling that the youths in the Niger Delta feel aggrieved and on developmental issues in the area.
“That means that the NDDC must be properly focused to address these issues and there must be efficient management of fund and resources.
“Government will look into some of these issues raised and look at what led to the abandonment of projects and the failure of completing some of the projects.
“We will look at the issues of variations and will find out whether those variations are done in line with the laws because there are procurement laws that guide any variation.”
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