NDDC chairperson aborts 25biliion payment as FG sets to domicile the commission at SGF office.
Ms. Lauretta Onochie seems to be set at winning the battle against the vultures who have been feeding fat on the fortune of the people of the Niger Delta provided by the Federal Government through the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
Sources close to the commission informed us that the ad hoc committee has looted resources of the commission such as motor vehicles and others assets in a very shameful manner, and are still bent on continuing to siphon monies meant for projects by the commission.
According to our source, the new Managing Director was alleged to have colluded with a Governor of one the South East States to pay the sum of 25Billion to the State ministry of works to pursue political agenda which was disguised as funding for projects to be carried out in collaboration with the commission.
However, in a successful bid to break the stranglehold of these vultures from the NDDC, the new board in spite of initial set back at their first meeting voted to confer on the Chairman the right to sign all Cheques of the commission before they are released from the coffers in order to curtail all forms of waste and underhand practices.
The board insisted that things would be done differently from now on because you can not continue to do things the same way and expect a different result.
In a boost of the position of the Board, Ms. Lauretta Onochie has been confirmed as the Executive Chairman of the board of the NDDC in a letter from the office Secretary of the Government of the Federation(SGF) and the NDDC has been moved back to the Office of the SGF from the Ministry of Niger Delta to ensure accountability. It is clear that the new executive Chairman is empowered and ready to replicate the kind of work that the late Professor Dora Akniyuli did at the National Agency For Food Drug Administration (NAFDAC) in her heydays.
The support of stakeholders in the Niger Delta Region and indeed Nigeria will go a long way to help her deliver on the mandate of the NDDC in alleviating the infrastructural deficit of the region and better the lives of the people by insisting on getting value for the huge resources being expended by the commission. We can only pray and wish her all the best.