Senator Godswill Akpabio, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs on Wednesday said that the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) had not performed well since its establishment.
The minister also decried the massive indebtedness of the Commission to the tune of N2 trillion to some real contracts and imagined contracts.
The senator during a meeting with the Management team of the commission explained that there would be a forensic audit of the funds received and spent by the Commission since 2000.
“The impact of NDDC on the entire Niger Delta region would have been more if not for those thing militating development, personal interest, political interest, interferences here and there.
“The NDDC was strategic, it was a child of necessity, I believe that the NDDC has not performed well, I don’t want to say that you have failed the region, I am saying that you have not performed well.
“The real youths of the Niger Delta who undertook clearance of water have not been paid, those that were paid are political youths, people that you owe just N500,000 to N1 million are over 400, and they have been going to NDDC for over ten years, and the money has not been given to them.
“I know as for now in terms of debt, NDDC owes over N2 trillion, some of them are real, some are imagined, but the problem we are having is that you won’t know the ones that are real when they are mixed with the that are political, and the result is that someone who took a loan to do a real job for NDDC probably may have died, leaving the family at penury.
“We will do forensic analysis and audit, we will try to go back even from the year 2000 up till now to know what came in and what went out and why we have not seen much on the ground,” Senator Akpabio said.
