The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Pastor Usani Uguru Usani, has charged
the new management of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, to do
more for the development of the Niger Delta region.
The Minister was speaking at the NDDC headquarters in Port-Harcourt, when
he paid a working visit to the new management team of the Commission. He
was accompanied by his Minister of State, Prof. Claudius Daramola, the
ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Alhaji Aminu Aliyu-Bisalla and other
directors of the supervising ministry.
Pastor Usani stated that the current NDDC management, being an interim one,
was expected to do more for the people of the Niger Delta than a regular
board. “We expect every functionary and staff of the commission to
appreciate this fact and put up the very best efforts in the performance of
their duties,” he said.
The Minister noted: “Brief as this management may be, we are charging you
to put in your best. There is a lot that can be achieved, especially as the
administration of President Muhammadu Buhari continues for the next four
years.”
Pastor Usani emphasised that the policy of the Buhari administration was
that there would be nothing like abandoned projects. “That is why you can
see many of the projects started 20-30 years ago, especially infrastructure
are still being reviewed and executed,” he said.
He urged the NDDC management and staff to recognise the important and
special place they occupy in the development of Niger Delta and in the
bigger economic picture of Nigeria.
The Minister said: “It may be too early to assess the performance of the
new management team. But it is essential for us to know that the task for
the management is a greater burden than it would have been if it has longer
time to stay.”
He said that his ministry would continue to supervise the Commission to
ensure that it performs maximally “because the performance of NDDC goes a
long way to determine the forms of agitation we get from the different
segments of members of Niger Delta society.”
He added: “I will be pleased to have a peaceful environment for the period
you will be in charge of affairs in the Commission.”
Earlier in his remarks the NDDC Acting Managing Director, Prof. Nelson
Brambaifa, said that in the absence of the Commission’s board of directors,
the minister takes over as the supervising authority, stating: “It is only
fair and wise that he comes once in a while to see how we are faring and to
see whether we are following laid down procedures.”
According to him, the new management of the commission was working
tirelessly to deliver on its mandate within the shortest possible time.
*Prof. Brambaifa said that henceforth, payment to contractors would be made
promptly without unnecessary bureaucratic bottlenecks, noting that* the
Commission had fine-tuned its processes and was now using a more efficient
procedure in paying for projects and meeting its financial obligations.
In his own remarks, the NDDC Acting Executive Director Finance and
Administration, Mr. Chris Amadi, said the Commission was very much aware of
the need to fast-track the development of the Niger Delta region and was
appropriately taking directives from its supervising ministry.
He declared: “We took up payments of contractors who have been owed for
years. We made sure that those which fell under 10 million got their
payments even in their homes. We are now compiling payments for
20-30million. We have also paid for the water hyacinths and some of the
palliatives and interventions which the Commission set out to address the
challenges of youth restiveness to ensure peace in the region.”
He said further: “We have paid major contractors to motivate them to go
back to site and complete their projects. We have commitments from several
of them that projects are on-going and will soon be completed.”
Mr Amadi stated that NDDC had commenced projects inspection, starting with
the new headquarters of the commission and would be embarking on major
projects’ inspections across the region from next week.
*Charles Odili *Director, Corporate Affairs.
March 29, 2019.