By Chris Ochayi

ABUJA—THE Federal Government, International Oil Corporations, IOCs, the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, and other stakeholders, yesterday, agreed to develop a common template to fast-track the development of the Niger Delta region.

The stakeholders expressed concern that despite huge resources committed into the development of the region in the past years, not much had been achieved, with numerous projects abandoned across the region..

Those who attended the meeting convened by the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Pastor Usani Uguru Usani, included the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta Affairs, Gen. Paul Boro (retd), Managing Director of Total Oil, Nicholas Terraz, representative of TEPNG, Olalere Babashola, representative of LNG, Kudo Eresia-Eke and representative of Managing Director of NAOC, Barry Nwibani.

Others were DC Gwom, General Manager of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Jeff Ewing, Managing Director of Chevron, Osagie Okunbor, Managing Director, Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, among others.

Also in attendance were the representatives of Agip Oil Company, Mobil Producing Plc and Pan Oceanic, as well as representatives of the governors of Delta and Imo states.

Speaking,  Pastor  Usani said: “From the outcome of what we have been doing behind closed  doors, and the result we will get from here is that we will have a common template upon which project executions will be based. So, when the 2017 budget is being implemented, you will see the results. We have agreed that we are going to have a compact working framework for coordinated planning and development. We will, as much as possible, ensure that we eliminate duplications from all agencies of development in the region.

“Because functioning independently will only amount to waste and conflicts of roles. We want to eliminate all these and be sure that every government functionary as well as the partners in development is on the same page. Some of the highlights show that the duplicity of our operation amounts to a lot of waste. So on this we have got this volume of dossier report which NDDC has carried out.

“Also, we have, in our interaction with the European Union support programme made them to understand that from the planning stages we need to know or get involved in what they are doing.”

In his remarks, Mr. Kachikwu, said: “What has happened in the past is stereotype and a lot of money that has gone into these agencies did not go to the communities. We must be able to consider on a year to year basis, what capital projects across states, whether it is inter-regional, inter-state, whatever it takes that we develop on a year to year basis.

So, we are going to put that together and we are going to get the Niger Delta to actually chair that. And the whole idea is that everybody who is putting in money, so that if we say we need to do X development in the region this year, we can see where the money is coming from and that people can see what we do. My greatest upset with this whole system is that when you look at the high analysis of figures $40 billion for 12 years there is nothing to show for it.”