Forensic audit to make NDDC more trustworthy, says Akpabio

Minister of the Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, yesterday, disclosed that the forensic auditors of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) have been mandated to create an organogram that will make the agency more trustworthy and bankable agency.

Akpabio, who said this on a Radio Nigeria audience participatory programme organised at the Radio House in Abuja, said: “For example, they could go to any international institution and get money to embark on major projects to change the lives of the Niger Delta people.

He insisted that it was important that the forensic audit was concluded and its report submitted to President Muhammdu Buhari, as the recommendations and outcome of the exercise would be implemented by the new board that would soon be inaugurated to reposition the NDDC for effective service delivery.

He added that people were commending the president for the efforts, maintaining that the delay notwithstanding, when the exercise was completed, the NDDC would not remain the same again.

The minister recalled that the forensic auditors were engaged to scrutinise the activities of the NDDC that was mired in allegation of massive corruption to change the narrative of the Niger Delta region.

“This is in line with the presidential directive for a holistic examination and review of the operations of the NDDC from inception in 2009 to 2019 to ascertain the exact status of all contracts for projects and services as classified into completed, uncompleted, abandoned and ongoing.

“It also tallies with the quest to develop facilities that can be salvaged and whether appropriations made to the NDDC are commiserate with developments on ground,” he stated.

He noted that due to lack of budgetary provision, President Buhari opted for the forensic audit in July 2020 to be funded through the budget of the presidency and that the exercise was on course and expected to be concluded and its report submitted to the President by July 2021.

“In pursuance of the Federal Government’s mandate and commitment to the development of the Niger Delta Region, the supervision of NDDC was assigned to the ministry for administrative efficiency, which brought about the commissioning of the completed headquarters after being abandoned for over 19 years.

“For the first time a minister visited the NDDC headquarters that the defunct Oil Minerals Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) started in 1996, but abandoned over the years. Today, it is completed and commissioned,” he said.