TheCable

The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) says it has revoked 600 contracts as part of efforts to restructure the commission.

Speaking with journalists in Port Harcourt on Thursday, Nsima Ekere, NDDC managing director, said the management of the commission and board took the decision to adopt a ‘4R’ initiative as a roadmap to development.

According to him, the 4R initiative is restructuring the balance sheet, reforming governance protocol, restoring core mandate and reaffirming commitment to doing what is right and proper.

Ekere said the balance sheet of the commission was bloated with contingent liabilities in excess of N1.3tn; hence the need for the reform.

“The move became imperative looking at the resources coming on monthly or yearly basis which necessitated restructuring it in a manner that will be meaningful to achieve results,” he said.

“The last management meeting approved cancellation of over 600 projects that NDDC already embarked on.

“We discovered that some of the contracts were either not properly awarded or some of them were awarded but the contractors have not yet gone to site.

“Some of the contracts were awarded as late as 2002 with some of the contractors collecting advance payments from the commission with zero work done at the sites.

“So, we terminated these contracts worth about N200bn, which is the first phase of our restructuring the commission’s balance sheet.”

Ekere said the second phase of the restructuring would affect projects that had only attained zero to five per cent completion status.

He explained that contractors in this category were those who went to site but had achieved negligible work compared to the contractual agreement.

“On restoration of the commission’s core mandate, we want to ensure that projects that we do are geared toward achieving the core mandates for establishing the commission,” he said.

“In the past, our contracts and projects were politically motivated while some were done to satisfy one person or interest which is not good enough.

“If there is a master plan or design to achieve a certain milestone within a set period; every year or month spent should be an incremental step toward achieving that target.

“So, we looked at the master plan which is supposed to be accomplished within 50 years but have already spent 10 years without much being achieved.”