The Senate committee on Niger Delta, has said it is investigating that activities of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) from its inception in 2000 to date based on a petition written to the Senate by a concerned Nigerian.
This is just as the committee has called on NDDC contractors who collected mobilization fees and abandoned the projects in different parts of the Niger Delta region to return to site and complete the projects or refund the monies collected.
Chairman of the committee, Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, disclosed this yesterday when he led members of the committee on a courtesy visit to the acting managing director of the NDDC, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari, at the commission’s headquarters in Port Harcourt.
Nwaoboshi said: “We are here based on a referral from the Senate that there was a petition to the Senate about the performance of the NDDC since its inception. The Senate in its wisdom said the Committee on Niger Delta should go and do a holistic investigation into the activities of the NDDC from its inception from the year 2000 till date.’’
He revealed that contractors abandoned projects in some states in the region after collecting over N26bn as mobilization fees from the commission.
“We discovered that in Bayelsa State, you have 33 abandoned projects and you have already paid N10.4bn as mobilization on those projects. That is the state we have the highest number of abandoned projects in this Niger Delta. In Akwa Ibom, you have paid about N6bn; in Rivers, you have paid about N4bn on abandoned projects. In Delta, you have paid about N2bn.’’
Meanwhile, Semenitari, regretted that the commission received below N500bn from the Federal Government since it was founded in year 2000, pointing out that the Niger Delta region is dire need of intervention.
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