permanent headquarters at the Eastern By-Pass, Port Harcourt.
Speaking during the inauguration at the new office complex, the NDDC
Acting Managing Director, Professor Kemebradikumo Pondei, observed that
the commission had been a tenant, operating out of rented buildings for
over twenty years of its existence.
He noted: “The Headquarters Project, which was commenced in the Oil
Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission, OMPADEC times, has in
itself been a never-ending undertaking of the Commission all this while,
constituting a permanent drain on its resources with a continuous flow
of funds and resources to the project over these years.
“Several revisions, redesigns and amendments later, it was still without
a complete schedule or date at the inception of the Interim Management
Committee, IMC. Today we are happy that it is now a project under final
completion phases.”
Pondei said that members of the committee were selected to see to the
end of the process and plan for befitting commissioning of the edifice,
noting: “that we are performing this inauguration ceremony from within
the structure itself is a testimony to the resilience of the Commission
under the IMC to bring this project to an end and to deliver a befitting
home to the permanent ownership and use of the NDDC.”
The NDDC Chief Executive Officer said that because of the importance of
the project, it was necessary to ensure that there were no further
bottle-necks or delays arising from any bureaucracy.
He stated: “We have decided that the Acting Executive Director
Projects, EDP, of the Commission will directly handle and chair this
assignment to the benefit of the Commission.”
In his remarks, the EDP and chairman of the committee, Dr. Cairo
Ojougboh, thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for giving the IMC the
opportunity to serve, noting that the members were ever ready to work,
in spite of all the distractions from those who he said did not mean
well for the Niger Delta region.
He said: “We have put everything behind us and we have resolved to work
for the betterment of the Niger Delta. Our first mandate is to complete
and commission the new NDDC headquarters.”
He thanked the Acting Managing Director for selecting members of the
committee and assured that they would not disappoint him and the
Minister of Niger Delta Affairs. He “Going forward, the Commission has
resolved to go on with the job of developing the Niger Delta region.
“We will resume our inspections and all activities of the commission
will continue as usual. We have grown above the distractions and we urge
Nigerians to discountenance every mud thrown at the IMC and the NDDC.”
Ojougboh said that the task of completing the new headquarters was a
test of the will of the Commission to make sure that it did not derail.
We promise Mr. President and Nigerians that we will deliver as expected.
He re-iterated that the forensic audit was progressing as planned and
that nothing would prevent it from being completed.
He charged the members of the committee to see the assignment as a very
serious task that must be given all their energy.