- Gives acting MD a week to produce requested documents on alleged N65bn contract
The Senate Committee on Public Accounts on Tuesday warned the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) not to play on the intelligence of committee members with the delay in producing necessary documents in relation to the alleged N65 billion contract inflation. The furious chairman of the committee, Sen. Matthew Urhoghide (Edo South), expressed displeasure over failure of the Commission to submit in detail information requested by the committee on the contract.
The committee gave the NDDC one week grace to submit all requested information on the water hycinth and distilling contacts from 2017 to 2019. The Commission was mandated to furnish the committee with the request next week Wednesday.
The management of NDDC led by the acting Managing Director, Dr. Enyia Akwagaga, was before the committee on Tuesday to defend allegations surrounding the contract but once again failed to make available needed information by the committee.
The legislature is investigating the purported inflation of a N2.5 billion contract meant for the clearance of water hyacint from the various riverine areas of the oil-rich region by the Commission to a whopping sum of N65 billion. Dr. Akwagaga apologised for failing twice to honour senate invitation with relevant documents relating to all awarded contracts particularly that water hyacinth contract. Disappointed that the information provided by NDDC was inadequate, the committee chairman, Urhoghide reminded the managing director of details of information needed on the two contracts. According to the chairman, the NDDC supposed to provide information on schedule of contracts, project titles, project locations, names and address of contractors, contract sum, date of award, amount paid so far and expected date of completion on the contracts.
“These are what you are expected to bring but in your wisdom, what you brought did not pertain to all we asked from you. Documents you submitted are not complete and detailed. “These information you have here does not contain addresses of contractors, date of award of contract, amount paid so far on each of the contracts and when are they expected to be completed. “You can see that these are incomplete documents. It is grossly below our expectation,” said Urhoghide.
The chairman thereafter, asked the acting Managing Director the way forward and Dr. Akwagaga suggested that some directors of the Commission do answer questions relevant to their schedule, to which the Committee vehemently rejected. A member of the Committee, Sen. Ibrahim Oloriegbe (Kwara Central) said: “You are the Managing Director and you were placed on oath, therefore all submission has to be done by you and not the directors”. The chairman later told the acting Managing Director to provide the necessary documents on the two contracts within a week, so that the Committee can go through and later invite NDDC to defend itself. He said: “We need these documents on Wednesday and that you should increase the point size because with this point size it seems you did not us want to read through the document. Let it be self-explanatory. “We expect that until you bring these documents, there is nothing we can do”.
