The Senate has summoned the Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Enyia Akwagaga, to urgently appear and clarify allegations of a contract scam on Water Hyacinth project amounting to N65 billion.
The Senate said the project was designed to be executed to take only N2.5 billion but the NNDC jerked the figure to N65 billion.
The Acting managing director is to appear before the Senate on Tuesday, 22 October, by 3 pm.
This was the outcome of a public hearing organised by the Senate Committee on Public Accounts.
Chairman of the committee, Senator Matthew Urhoghide (APC, Edo South) explained that the Senate was investigating the project to ascertain whether or not due process was followed.
The Senate is peeved because apart from the project scam discovered in the commission, the MD blatantly refused to appear to proffer explanation to the lawmakers.
The MD had instead of appearing in person, detailed the commission’s Director of Special Duties, Nosakhare Agbongiasede as his representative.
This was contained in a letter from the acting MD in which she stated her inability to appear, and willingness to corporate with the committee and appealed for another date.
According to Urhoghide, “We want to ascertain if due process was followed in the award of the contract. Our assessment is based on a document we have. N2.5 billion was budgeted for the project but the documents before us show that over N65 billion has been spent.”
Recalling that the committee wrote to NDDC on October 10, 2019, on the alleged contract scam, the committee chairman asked the MD to furnish it with the project documents and also appear unfailingly.
