Akpabio accuses National Assembly members of benefitting from NDDC Contracts

The Minister of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Godswill Akpabio while answering questions at the hearing session of the House of Representatives Committee on NDDC, accused members of the National Assembly of being beneficiaries of about 60% of the contracts awarded by the NDDC.

He was however, called to order by members of the committee.

He was also accused as the Supervising Minister, Monitoring agent and Head of the NDDC of misleading the parliament.

Members of the committee, were critical about the fact that most of the contracts awarded by the NDDC had no budgetary backing.

He was alleged to have purchased of 90 vehicles, spent N11billion on Covid19 palliatives, appointed forensic auditors without due diligence.

In the same vein, the members of the house committee on NDDC were also interested in knowing why an Interim Management Committee (IMC) which is “unknown to the law” was constituted and also why a Medical Doctor was appointed as the Director of Projects of the commission.

In his response, Akpabio stated that the existence of the IMC predated him.

Furthermore, he stated that in view of the fact that the entire country is presently being ravaged by the Covid19 pandemic and also that over 60% of NDDC projects are health related, it was not out of place to appoint a Medical Doctor as Director of Projects in the commission.

It would be recalled that the public hearing put in place to look into allegations of Financial Mismanagement in the Niger Delta Development Commission.

There were allegations of contract splitting, abandoned projects and over inflated projects in the NDDC.