Group Seeks Information on Funds Expended by NDDC in Four Years

Sylvester Idowu in Warri

Community Development Committees of Niger Delta Oil and Gas Producing Areas (CDCNDOGPA), has activated the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) to seek revenue profile of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) between 2017 and 2022, when the Interim Sole Administrator, Mr. Effiong Akwa, was relieved of his post.

The Chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of CDCNDOGPA, Mr. Joseph Ambakederimo, in a statement issued in Warri, Delta State, yesterday, said the group’s counsel, A.P. Oyibo and Co., has submitted a letter to the acting managing director of NDDC and copies of which were made to the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs and the chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) under the FoI Act requesting for financial records of the NDDC in the past six years.

He stated that the group’s action was in response to the recent visit by the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs to the commission, where he called for the erstwhile Interim Sole Administrator, Akwa, to account for over N300 billion wasted by the NDDC.

Ambakederimo also said the call for the FoI request was to further highlight the importance of holding people who are saddled with critical responsibilities to account for actions taken while in office.

The Chairman of the BoT of CDCNDOGPA noted that the era of gloom and doom in the NDDC is now a thing of the past and gone for good paving the way for a new dawn in the commission, and expressed the hope that the people, whom the NDDC was established to cater for would be happy and elated to see a new interventionist agency that works for them.

According to him, “It is in the spirit of the above that the Community Development Committees of Niger Delta Oil and Gas Producing Areas, seek to partner the NDDC being the true representatives of the people in the oil and gas bearing communities. Because we represent the communities, it is our profound belief that we must continually hold the managers of the resources of the NDDC to account at all times.

“Going further on issues of transparency and accountability on the part of the managers of the oil and gas resources for the development of the communities, and the defence of our people in the oil and gas communities in the Niger Delta region, therefore, we have to seek the cooperation of the new management of the NDDC and also from the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs to avail us our request to enable us have an informed expenditure profile of the commission as it relates to the period under review, which is April 2019 to the October 20, 2022. This is the period the mismanagement of the resources of the commission surpassed the period covered by the forensic audit.”

Ambakederimo said the FoI request was coming at a time a new management

is taking charge and have the task of remaking and presenting a new NDDC to the people of the region, noting that this can only happen if the resources are religiously and judiciously applied to relieve the people of years of pain and agony.

“Therefore the CDC is expected to receive

the request from the NDDC either before or on November 11, 2022. The prompt feedback from the NDDC on this FoI request will in no small measure present the present leadership as willing to engage and do things differently away from the past,” he added.