The Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, has invited President
\nMuhammadu Buhari to commission the 29-kilometre Ogbia-Nembe Road in
\nBayelsa State. The road, built in conjunction with the Shell Petroleum
\nDevelopment Company, SPDC, creates a land link to the ancient city of
\nNembe for the first time.<\/p>\n
The Commission’s Director of Corporate Affairs, Mr. Charles Odili
\ndisclosed this in Abuja after delivering the NDDC management’s
\ninvitation to Mr. President through the Minister for Niger Delta
\nAffairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio.<\/p>\n
Odili noted that the road project, which costs N24 billion, cutting
\nthrough swampy terrain with spurs to 14 other communities, needed 10
\nbridges and 99 culverts. “To conquer the swampy terrain. The
\nconstruction involved digging out four metres of clay soil and sand
\nfilling it to provide a base for the road,” he observed.<\/p>\n
Significantly, he said, “the road has cut the journey time to Yenagoa,
\nthe Bayelsa State capital, from three hours to one and a half hours.”<\/p>\n
Odili said the joy of the communities served by the road was
\nunspeakable, noting: “This project is not the only flagship of
\nintervention in the Niger Delta, it is also a model of the development
\npartnership between the Commission and international oil companies in
\nthe region.”<\/p>\n
Odili also disclosed that scholars of the Commission who are facing
\nhardships abroad because of the non-remittance of their fees and
\nstipends would be paid by the end of the week, following the order of
\nPresident Buhari.<\/p>\n
He said the delay in the remittance of the fees was caused by the sudden
\ndeath of Chief Ibanga Etang, the then Acting Executive Director, Finance
\nand Administration, EDFA, of the Commission in May.<\/p>\n
Odili stated: “Under the Commission’s finance protocol, only the
\nExecutive Director (Finance) and the Executive Director (Projects) can
\nsign for the release of funds from the Commission’s domiciliary accounts
\nwith the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.<\/p>\n
“With the death of Chief Etang, the remittance has to await the
\nappointment of a new EDFA.”<\/p>\n
Odili said further: “Senator Akpabio, the Honourable Minister, said
\nPresident Buhari who has been briefed on the protest by students at the
\nNigerian High Commission in London, has ordered that all stops be pulled
\nto pay the students by the end of this week. We expect a new EDFA to be
\nappointed this week. As soon as that is done, they would all be paid.”<\/p>\n
On the list of NDDC contracts handled by members of the National
\nAssembly, Odili said, the one submitted by Senator Akpabio was not
\ncompiled by the minister but came from the files in the Commission.<\/p>\n
The NDDC spokesperson said the list submitted to the National Assembly
\nwas actually compiled by the then management of the Commission in 2018.
\nHe observed that there was another set of lists for emergency project
\ncontracts awarded in 2017 and 2019 but these were not submitted to the
\nNational Assembly.<\/p>\n
Odili affirmed: “The Interim Management Committee, IMC, of the
\nCommission stands by the list, which came from files already in the
\npossession of the forensic auditors. It is not an Akpabio list but the
\nNDDC’s list. The list is part of the volume of 8,000 documents already
\nhanded over to the forensic auditors.”<\/p>\n
The NDDC Corporate Affairs Director also said that prominent indigenes
\nof the Niger Delta whose names were on the list should not panic as the
\nCommission knew that people used the names of prominent persons in the
\nregion to secure contracts, adding that the ongoing forensic audit would
\nunearth those behind the contracts.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson said the intention of the list was to expose committee
\nchairmen in the National Assembly who used fronts to collect contracts
\nfrom the Commission, some of which were never executed.<\/p>\n
Odili added that the list did not include the unique case of 250
\ncontracts which were signed for and collected in one day by one person
\nostensibly for members of the National Assembly.<\/p>\n
On the forensic audit exercise, he said that it was on course and the
\nCommission had positioned 185 media to support specialists to identify
\nthe sites of every project captured in its books for verification by the
\nforensic auditors.<\/p>\n
Odili advised members of the public to discountenance the “avalanche of
\nfalsehood being orchestrated by mischief makers,” regretting that “more
\ninsinuations and accusations may be thrown into the public space by
\nthose opposed to the IMC.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, has invited President Muhammadu Buhari to commission the 29-kilometre Ogbia-Nembe Road in Bayelsa State. The road, built in conjunction with the Shell Petroleum Development…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other-news"],"yoast_head":"\n