By Our Reporter
If revelation made by an official of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) that a serving Senator from the South South region (nameswithheld) handles 300 projects out of which 120 have been fully paid for while none was executed is anything to go by then the NDDC is allegedly and literally swimming in a pool of controversy and fraud.
This scoop was partly corroborated by the commission’s interim management committee last Sunday.
The Acting Executive Director of Projects, Cairo Ojougboh, said 120 of the contracts have been fully paid for. He, however, did not speak on the status of the contracts but noted that investigation is ongoing.
The federal government penultimate week set up an interim management committee to run the NDDC whose mandate is to help create an “enabling environment” for the forensic audit of the NDDC which was announced by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Ojougboh also disclosed that the NDDC owes contractors about N3 trillion.
The acting director said the ongoing forensic audit would help uncover how the debt was accrued.
He also said those opposed to the audit have something to hide, “as they must have played a role in NDDC’s mismanagement”.
He accused the unnamed senator of sponsoring a smear campaign against the interim management, which he said would function for less than six months and hand over to the substantive board.
