…Again, Lawmakers Summon Minister, NDDC Boss

By Tordue Salem, Abuja

The immediate past Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Joy Nunieh, Friday testified before the House of Representatives Committee on NDDC investigating the alleged financial impropriety at the Commission, leading to a fresh summons of the Minister of Niger Delta, Godswill Akpabio and the current Acting MD, Prof. Kemebradikumo Daniel Pondei.

Nunieh who fielded questions from the  Committee, via zoom, made fresh allegations against the Minister, who she accused of contract crimes at the NDDC.

The ex NDDC Boss was to testify before the Committee yesterday, but could not because of efforts by the Police arrest her in Port Harcourt.

Answering questions from the Committee, the NDDC Boss said she spent only N8 billion throughout her tenure, from October 29 to February 17th.

Nunieh revealed that with the instruction of Akpabio, some contracts were awarded by the Commission to unregistered companies,  some of which got registered after they were awarded the contract.

She said: “In some cases contracts were preawarded before the designs were given so you find out that most of the projects were abandoned”.

According to Nunieh, there was no ongoing forensic audit of the Commission.

“The issue is that everyone in Nigeria has been deceived that the forensic audit is going on.

“I want to say here that if Nigerians find out that the forensic audit is going on every testimony and allegations that I have made should be canceled and disregarded, there’s no forensic audit going on. There’s no aiding firm in Nigeria that’s of big repute. The nine companies on that list, none of our major auditing companies in Nigeria is on that list. Secondly can I say that the forensic auditors have been procured, my answer is no.

“The President had written a letter to the National Assembly appointing the forensic and suspending the appointment of the board, in that letter the President said that he was appointing the Interim Management Committee (IMC) to supervise the forensic audit, that was the reason he was bringing in the IMC, what I met wasn’t exactly what was going on, the Minister, Akpabio insisted that he will supervise the forensic audit, I reminded him and showed him a letter that the President had written, there’s no way that we can spend the money that’s in our budget.

READ ALSO: NDDC: Lawyers condemn IMC for walking out on NASS

“He requested in his memo to the President money for the funding of the forensic audit be gotten from the service wide votes.  President Buhari in his wisdom refused that request and in writing said that it should be put in the NDDC appropriation budget, making NDDC the procuring entity. And I said that to take the money and send it to the ministry will be like Federal Ministry of Health asking the federal medical center that they will like to implement what’s in the budget now.

“Because I didn’t want any illegality or the forensic audit to be discredited, I ensured with the help of real consultants to help me come up with the terms for these auditors. The lead consultant that everyone is talking about is not a forensic auditor, only the others are forensic auditors, the role of the lead consultant is to gather all the forensic auditors, all the reports and put them together and give  to the lead consultant who will do the reporting, that’s just his role.

“On the case of the forensic auditor I do not know if they have ever carried out a forensic audit, I will be asking to tell them to give you evidence that they have ever carried out a forensic audit report in accordance with provisions of public procurement act.

“Can I now stand before this committee to say that the lead consultant has been procured? My answer will be no. Remember you cannot give any approval or procure any consultant without the appropriation made by the National Assembly.

“2020 budget hasn’t even been considered or discussed not to mention being passed. They don’t have approval”, she said.

The Committee, after an exhaustive day, resolved to summon both the Minister and the current Acting MD, who staged a walk out on the Committee on Thursday.

Vanguard