Following the instruction of President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday ordering a forensic auditing of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), various groups and experts in management accounting have urged the president to inaugurate the new board to assist the forensic audit team that will be put in place.
It would be recalled that there have been public outcry and criticisms against the interim board of the Commission over allegation of shady employment deals and alleged dubious award and payments for water hyacinth contracts that failed due process.
The New Diplomat had, a few weeks ago, blew open the scandal in the Commission, over the allegation of a conspiracy between the interim management team headed by Dr. Akwangaga and the new Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio to hurriedly employ 300 persons in the Commission without board approval, including the award and payment of water hyacinth contract for a whopping N1.9 billion.
Worried by this newspaper’s report and outcry from stakeholders, President Buhari, during a meeting with governors from the Niger Delta yesterday, ordered a forensic auditing of the board of the Commission from 2001 till date. The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Adesina, was quoted as saying that Mr. President was angered by the poor state of the Niger Delta in spite of the huge funds that have been committed since its inception of the NDDC.
However, while expecting the setting up of the audit team, experts and groups have recommended that the President inaugurates the new board of the Commission to be in place to assist the audit team do a thorough job.
Reacting to the development, the President of Ijaw Diaspora Coalition, Elder Johnson Ebibai, noted that going by the wide media report on the allegation that the interim management team of the Commission, was set to illegally recruit over 300 new staff without board approval, it took the effort of stakeholders to stop the plan, adding that the interim management team therefore lacks the credibility to guide the forensic audit team expected to be set up.
Speaking in the same vein, an accomplished economist, Dr. Jeffrey Emerson, lauded President Buhari move to set up a forensic audit for the Commission. He however advised that the audit team can only be supervised by a new board that has not been part of the rot that has bedeviled the Commission.
He said: “It’s a very laudable and encouraging move. Stakeholders like us are elated.
“But in carrying out the audit, it has to be supervised by a new Board, the New Board that has never been part of the rot in the past.
“You don’t expect the acting Managing Director or bureaucrats who have been part of the rot in the past to supervise that audit.
“The auditing team should work independently with a team and that team, in my view should be the newly named Board. That is the standard practice globally.”
