Some stakeholders in the Niger Delta region have lauded the efforts of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Senate President Godswill Akpabio on the successful screening and confirmation of the new governing board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
They described the decision of President Tinubu and Akpabio to speed up the processes of nomination, screening and confirmation as a demonstration of the present administration’s willingness and commitment to the development of the region.
The stakeholders, who comprised traditional rulers, youth leaders and civil society groups (CSGs), urged the new board to provide the needed checks and balances and encourage the management team to work in the interest of the people and the region.
But they alleged that despite the over N300 billion the previous NDDC management got in less than a year, it did not complete or rehabilitate a single major road, bridge, hospital, or school.
In a statement by their spokesman Celestine Okpara, the stakeholders said the new management team, including its executive directors, should reform the commission to be a positive departure from its old administrative style.
Okpara said the old style of administration at the regional intervention agency had enslaved the people and encouraged a web of silence in the face of illegality.
The spokesman said this included the previous management’s refusal to sign the Interim Payment Certificate (IPC) of genuine contractors, thereby stalling projects completion to a more proactive commission committed to the development of the region.
He urged the new management team to strive to reduce the suffering of the people in the region, stressing that;
“scores of the indigenous contractors are sick and some are suffering and dying due to their inability to get paid by the commission to enable them to pay the banks from where they secured loans to complete their projects.”
Okpara added,
“There have been numerous allegations that instead of signing the IPCs of genuine contractors, a certain director and his cohorts have allegedly been electively signing IPCs for only contractors that have either paid them or agreed to pay millions of naira or percentages for each project, while ignoring genuine contractors. This system has to change if the commission must progress.”
“We urge the incoming executive management team to immediately redeploy the director over those alleged schemes, and to cleanse the commission of previous misconduct, alleged bribery and corruption.
“The team should also direct the signing of the IPCs to hundreds of helpless and genuine indigenous contractors to enable them to present their IPCs to banks and to process their payments for jobs done in accordance with the commission’s contractual obligations.”
