NDDC Departments, Units Tasked on Diligence, Corporate Governance, CSR

Sunday Okobi

Members of staff of relevant departments and units of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) have been urged to lead the charge for diligence, corporate governance and optimal service delivery to enable the commission fulfil its mandate in the Niger Delta region.

The interventionist agency was also tasked on its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and responsiveness to the environment, the community and all the social forces in the region where its businesses are operated.

These charges were made recently at a three-day capacity building retreat and master’s class programme organised to create awareness and enhance the capacity of personnel of the Office of Executive Director, Corporate Service (EDCS) and the Department of Corporate Governance and Due Process, themed: ‘Building Synergy for Optimal Service Delivery and Effective Corporate Governance’, held at the Amber Residence, Ikeja GRA, Lagos State.

The event, which was facilitated by Peace and Development Projects (PEDEP) and MARG Education International with resource persons from the academia and consultancy firms, including KPMG, was to also help the participants to appreciate the giant stride of the Lagos State Government and its developmental strides with the tour of the National Theatre and other key places in the state.

In his keynote address, the Executive Director, Corporate Services of the NDDC, Hon. Ifedayo Abegunde, stressed the need for staff of the relevant departments and units in the NDDC to lead the charge for diligence corporate governance and optimal service delivery to enable the commission fulfil its mandate in the Niger Delta region.

According to Abegunde, the retreat and the master’s class programme were a further testimony to the determination of the Samuel Ogbuku-led management of the commission as well as the governing board headed by Mr. Chinedu Ibie to ensure that the NDDC is holistically repositioned for effective, focus-oriented and verifiable performances in line with the interventionist agenda that impact positively on the people and communities across the Niger Delta.

He noted further that the NDDC was created by the NDDC Act, 2000 (as amended) to facilitate the rapid and sustainable development of the Niger Delta region into an economically prosperous, socially stable, ecologically regenerative and politically peaceful region.

He said: “In order to better situate the NDDC for better implementation of its mandate, the NDDC Act 2000 was amended in 2023 to provide for the position of Execute Director, Corporate Services.

“Some of the issues sought to be resolved by the commission through the EDCS and the Corporate Governance department included: ‘Lack of operating policies and procedures to ensure quality assurance, repeatability of process and integrity; loss of contact with the commission’s vision and mandate in the conception, design and implementation of programs and projects.

“Haphazard operations in key strategic units with flagrant disregard to ethics, organisational culture and regulatory requirements, as well as lack of transparency at all levels among others.

“Therefore, the corporate governance department was charged with the following: ‘To promote transparency in the commission’s operations by providing clear and accurate information to stakeholders, and to facilitate the development, implementation, and operation of an effective corporate governance programme in the commission.

“To promote effective governance at key levels of management; assist the management in ensuring the commission’s practices conform to all applicable laws and regulations, and strengthen compliance with the commission’s policies, procedures, and applicable laws, and others.”

Meanwhile, in his remarks, one of the resources persons for the programme, a political analyst, Professor Sylvester Odion Akhaine, of the department of Political Science, Lagos State University, said NDDC is more or less a socially responsible state organisation which has its role clearly cut out for it.

He added that its essential role is to provide almost all the basic social amenities that the communities in the region require, which are pipe-borne water, roads, schools, health centres and other infrastructures for development.

The don noted that the expectations on the part of the people of the region about the NDDC are very high, adding that: “NDDC is an interventionist agency of the state dedicated to implementing development.

“The commission’s roles are cut out as a development agency in its mission, vision and values. It has somewhat of an oversight function over the activities of corporate actors in the region from which it partly draws it funds.

“But reciprocally, the contributing bodies must not be made to feel that they are wasting their money. That feeling can only be cured by the performance and delivery of service – the extent to which it can reduce environmental degradation in the region, provide potable water, access roads to communities, provide employment opportunities to the teeming jobless youth and equip them with 21st Century skill sets.”

Akhaine lamented that the commission operates in a general atmosphere of corruption where the state, itself a renter, and with a retinue of rent-seeking officials free-riders, ready to subvert its mandate through misappropriation and misapplication of the commission’s scarce resources.

“Therefore, for effective service delivery, the commission must run its business according to extant rules establishing the commission without succumbing to the meddlesomeness of federal public officials in quest of rent. In this way, capital and those seeking to misuse it can be disciplined,” he appealed. 

As part of the retreat and master class programme, NDDC members of staff toured of the National Arts Theatre, National Gallery of Arts and Universal Studios of Arts all located in Iganmu, Lagos. The participants also had a feel of the Lagos Blue Light Rail.

They stated that the tour helped them to appreciate ‘the giant stride of the Lagos State Government and its developmental strides’. At the National Theatre, the personnel saw the transformation currently underway, “which is giving the national monument a new look after many years of rot and neglect.”

Officials of the National Gallery of Arts received the NDDC personnel who were conducted round the premises of the Universal Studios of Arts and the National Gallery of Arts.