‘NDDC’s IMC admitted guilt’

Stakeholders under the auspices of the Niger Delta Renaissance Coalition (NDRC) and Transparency and Accountability Advancement Group (TAAG) have alleged that the Interim Management Committee (IMC) has admitted corruption and guilt, Daily Times gathered.

In a statement by its National Coordinator, Godknows Sotonye, NDRC said that its attention had been drawn to a story in a newspaper of August 8, 2020 where the IMC in a letter addressed to Dr. Joi Nunieh (former Ag. MD in the IMC), entitled

‘Demand for the refund of N1.96 billion to the Niger Delta Development Commission’, dated July 28, signed by Peter Claver Okoro Esq., Director Legal Services, stated as follows, “I have been directed to demand and I do hereby demand that you pay N1.96 billion within seven days of this letter to the account of the Commission in compliance with the order of the Senate of Nigeria.”

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The letter went further to state that Nunieh “approved payments of the money for Lassa fever kits against established due process principles.”

The group said: “We note with satisfaction that the imposed, illegal IMC contraption has by its own official letter admitted its guilt and has accepted the findings of the Senate Adhoc Committee on the allegations of corruption and financial recklessness at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), which recommendations were adopted by the Senate in plenary on Thursday July 23.

“To wit: ‘that the IMC be disbanded and made to refund the sum of N4.923 billion; that the substantive Governing Board of the NDDC be sworn in to manage the Commission in line with the provisions of the Law; that the NDDC be moved back to the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) in the Presidency for proper supervision; that the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation supervise the forensic audit to ‘guarantee independence, credibility, transparency and professionalism in the output of the exercise,’ and that ‘the President with advice from the auditor general should appoint a renowned, internationally-recognised forensic auditor to carry out the exercise.’”

According to NDRC, the Professor Keme Pondei – led IMC, by formally writing to Nunieh to refund N1.96 billion to the account of the commission “in compliance with the order of the Senate of Nigeria” is not only accepting the Senate report but is also admitting to its responsibility to refund the balance of N2.963 billion (attributable to the Pondei-led IMC) from the total N4.923 billion, which the Senate directed the IMC to refund to NDDC account.

On its part, TAAG said that in a statement published in newspapers and online media on August 8, Pondei claimed that his Interim Management Committee was blackmailed to pay contractors in exchange for getting the 2019 budget passed by the National Assembly NDDC Committees in March 2020.

Damian Nwikinaka, Director of Information and Strategy, TAAG said: “By his own admission, Pondei and the IMC paid for contracts that were either not executed or not completed. This is criminal and Pondei and his IMC colleagues must turn themselves in to the anti-graft agencies. If they fail to do so, the anti-graft agencies should make good their mandate and arrest members of the IMC and any collaborators, for immediate prosecution.

“No amount of appeal to base instincts, as Pondei tried to do with his misdirected statement, can remove from the fact that what the IMC did is criminal and goes to compound their very bad case of financial recklessness and mismanagement. It is even sadder that Pondei may have effectively compromised the so-called forensic audit by making payments for jobs not executed during the period covered by the audit. Nigerians may recall that the audit was supposed to cover the years since the establishment of the NDDC up to 2019.

“Looking at Pondei’s incoherent mumbojumbo on these contracts and other similar statements he and the IMC have released in the last few weeks, it is safe to assume that he and his colleagues are shopping for an easy way out of their corruption cul-de-sac, given that they have been indicted by the Senate after a thorough investigation, including a public hearing. If, indeed, Pondei and the IMC have been blackmailed to make unauthorised and fraudulent payments, then they should go to the anti-graft agencies, confess and indicate any companies that collaborated with them. The media is not a prosecuting agency, and this Pondei and the IMC should know.”