NDDC committee reiterates commitment to forensic audit

The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) interim management committee says it is committed to ensuring efficient forensic audit of the commission as approved by President Muhammadu Buhari.

NDDC Executive Director of Projects, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, who disclosed this on Sunday in Abuja, said that the committee is poised

According to Ojougboh, the NDDC is currently indebted to some phantom contractors to the tune of over N3 trillion, saying that contractors who benefitted from shady deals in the commission in the past were sponsoring attacks against the audit.

He said one of such contractors was awarded over 300 multi million naira contracts by the NDDC, out of which 120 of them have been fully paid for even when he has never mobilised to any of the sites.

Ojougboh alleged that the particular contractor is mobilising thugs in the Niger Delta, especially in Bayelsa and Delta states to instigate the people to prevent the forensic audit.

“The NDDC interim payment certificates that are pending are worth over N3 trillion and that is what the NDDC owes these phantom contractors. It is these phantom contractors that are working to stop the forensic audit; all they want is for looting to continue in the commission.

“They want to bring puppets to manage the forensic audit because they know that the members of the interim management committee will not compromise.

“If you look at the records at the NDDC, you will cry, some genuine people that have done jobs for the board have not been paid for over 15 years and their families are suffering. Many of those who were paid are these phantom contractors,” Ojougboh added.

He asserted that anybody working to stop the forensic audit is not a proper human being and is not doing so in the interest of Nigerians and Niger Delta people in particular.

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He observed that what the people of the region want is a forensic audit of the NDDC, saying that they were already asking how it would be conducted properly so that the nation would get the best result.

He however, maintained that it is only persons without pecuniary interests and not contractors in the NDDC that can deliver an effective forensic audit report because they were not protecting any individual interest, but to help the auditors do their job as required.