TheCable

The senate has set up an ad hoc committee to probe the interim management committee of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) over alleged mismanagement of N40 billion.

The resolution of the senate was sequel to a motion sponsored by Thompson Sekibo, senator representing Rivers east, on Tuesday.

In October 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari ordered a forensic probe of the commission’s activities from 2001 to 2019.

Last week, the president extended the tenure of the committee till December 2020.

Moving the motion on the floor of the senate, Sekibo alleged that the interim committee has engaged in awarding fraudulent contracts, one of the acts the president set up the committee to check.

“There has been a loud accusation of misuse of funds by previous management of the commission which portrayed the commission is a financial conduit pipe, especially when the aspiration of the founding fathers have been forsaken,” the senator said.

“The visible recklessness may have prompted the President to set up an Interim Management Committee while ordering a forensic audit of the commission so as to reposition it for its intended mandate.

“While the President’s action of setting up an IMC and the forensic audit may have been conceived to forestall the financial recklessness of the commission and reposition it for fast-tracking of the development of the region, the IMC has been more bedeviled with the same financial misuse, misapplication, misappropriation or outright fraud in the management of the funds of the commission.

“Within the last three months, the commission has spent over N40 billion of the commission’s fund without recourse to established processes of funds disbursement which has opened up further suspicion among stakeholders of the Niger Delta region.”

Olubunmi Adetunbi, senator representing Ekiti north, was appointed to chair the ad hoc panel.

The motion was adopted after it was put to a voice vote by Senate President Ahmad Lawan.