NDDC defends self in group’s N200bn contracts’ litigation

By Ben Eguzozie 

It is appearing difficult to wean Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) from phoney contracting and financial sleaze. Board after board at the government quango has been regularly trailed by stories of graft and more graft. This time around, the newly inaugurated governing board and management led by Lauretta Onochie appears to be treading the old undesirable path of its predecessors, despite her fleeting promise on inauguration day in January this year, of a decision to make a difference.

Wide reports state that the new NDDC board is set to pay N200 billion as costs to some contractors for yet unclear desilting contracts.

It is on the back of this that a civil society group in Rivers State, Alliance for Growth and Development in Rivers State, has sued the commission at the State High Court seeking declaratory and injunctive reliefs to restrain the commission from paying contractors over N200 billion desilting contracts.

But the development agency, regularly in the eye of the storm for malfeasance, is putting up a robust defence, to the effect that the report is “misleading and without foundation”.

According to Ibitoye Abosede, director of corporate affairs at the commission, the suit and subsequent injunction by Alliance for Growth and Development is “based on false premises”.

“At the inaugural meeting of the 6th Governing Board of the NDDC in the first week of January 2023, the board suspended the processing and payments of all desilting contracts, and directed a comprehensive review of all contracts in the Commission with a view to establishing transparency and accountability in the Commission’s processes.

“Against this background, therefore, it is clear that the legal action (by Alliance for Growth and Development) is misconceived. It is driven by bad faith and calculated to distract the current board from the path of reforming the NDDC, in line with its mantra of making a difference in the region.”

Only weeks after it was inaugurated last January, the public was buffeted with allegations that the new board was involved in asking to be given slots to award contracts

The jury is still out to see if the new board will truly be above board. But its spokesperson, Abosede said their “efforts (are) geared towards repositioning the Commission, to make a positive difference in the Niger Delta Region.”