The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has just raised alarm, saying it has uncovered plots to divert the entire payments from oil companies to a private account in the UK. The Commission expects over N200BN from oil companies plus about N65BN from the FG every year to add to other sundry sources for its yearly operations.
Oil companies are by law to remit three per cent of its annual budgets to the NDDC. This has been an issue because the Commission has long complained that the companies do not allow them access to their annual budgets so as to ascertain what three per cent is.
Next, a consultant was used over the years to collect the money at a fee of N1BN each month, making it N12BN per year, more than the recurrent salaries of workers in one year few years back.
Read Also: NDDC directs IOCS to pay into CBN offshore account
A statement by the Commission Friday, October 9, 2020, evening, said: “It has come to the attention of the NDDC that a security agency, working with unauthorised private individuals, is coercing international oil companies to pay the three percent levy due to the Commission to a private account in the United Kingdom.
“This is an alarming development and a clear case of illegality by elements within that security agency. We wish to state that the law setting up NDDC does not provide for the collection of its revenue by any agency other than the
Commission. Secondly, extant rules, particularly the Treasury Single Account (TSA) regime, mean that all revenue due to any agency of government can only be paid to that agency’s account in the Central Bank of Nigeria.
“The NDDC wishes to alert the general public and all stakeholders that it has not authorized any security agency to collect remittances on its behalf. Such payments and or remittances shall never count as statutory payments to the NDDC.
“Accordingly, any oil company, invited on such purposes should insist on payment of any such sum to the NDDC account with the Central Bank of Nigeria but not to any other agency’s account.
“Any security agency wishing to recover un-remitted funds from the IOCS or oil companies operating in the Niger Delta region should do so in collaboration with the management of the NDDC and such refunds should be directed into the accounts of the NDDC with the Central Bank of Nigeria, but not otherwise
“Any oil company coerced to make such payments should report same immediately to Mr Clever Okoro, Director, Legal Services, of the Commission on +234 813 011 7590.”
It looks like those keen on looting the commission have no plans to step down as device after device is unleashed. Few weeks back, the Commission said over 50 of the 2019 batch of foreign scholars did not care to go to the UK for schooling, meaning they stayed back in Port Harcourt to collect over $30,000 allowance.
