Reps grill NDDC over N 90.4bn extra-budgetary spending, 150 abandoned projects

The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts Monday grilled the acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Pondei Kemerbrandikumo, over N90.4billion extra-budgetary expenditure by the Commission between 2009 to 2011.

The Committee which is investigating audit queries, issued to Ministries,  Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) by the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation ( OAGF) also grilled Kemerbrandikumo over 150 NDDC abandoned projects in the Niger Delta after payment has been made to the contractors.

The Committee said the extra-budgetary expenditure was a violation of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and would not be allowed to go unpunished.

The lawmakers, therefore, directed the NDDC  to furnish the Committee with the details of affected contractors, so as to summon them to explain their roles in the abandoned projects.

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The OAGF had in a query noted that the NDDC paid N23.215 billion to contractors between 2008 to 2012 for a total of 150 projects,  which have now been stalled.

“Analysis of the NDDC contracts profile reveals that there are a total number of 150 stalled projects scattered all over the region as recorded by the project management department. The sum of N23.215 has so far been paid to the contractors of these projects”, the query stated.

The query added that there was also N5 billion excess payment for 77 of the projects, while there was no effort by the commission to recover the money.

The NDDC Executive Director, Projects, Cairo Ojougboh had said the audit query did not concern the Interim Management Committee (IMC) of the Commission as the IMC does not know anything in relation to the issues that necessitated the audit query.

But the Committee Chairman, Wole Oke, replied that the IMC has taken over both the assets and liability of the agency hence the Acting Managing Director must defend the query.

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According to Oke: “The MD has taken over both the asset and liability of the Commission. These queries were answered under your leadership and you lay then on oath. You own the document. We have taken note of what you said that IMC was not in place when these activities took place. We will take that into consideration in hearing you”.

Responding, the NDDC Boss admitted that there were actually cases of extra-budgetary expenditure by the Commission in the years under review, insisting that it was so because of late passage of the agency’s budgets during the period.

On the 150 abandoned projects, Kemerbrandikumo said NDDC was making efforts to recover the funds from the various contractors through the banks that raised Advanced Project Guarantees (APG) for them.

The Committee directed NDDC to furnish it with the details of all banks that gave APG to the contractors, the details of the projects, as well as the details of all the past Executive Directors of the Commission during the period.