Around 12,000 projects initiated by the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, would go through forensic audit in the next few weeks
This follows the approval of N722.3m by the Federal Executive Council, FEC, chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday.
Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, disclosed this to State House correspondents at the end of the 13th virtual FEC meeting at the State House in Abuja.
The Minister stated that his ministry presented a memorandum to the FEC for the appointment of eight forensic auditing firms to execute the forensic audit of states under the watch of the NDDC, noting that the memorandum was approved by the FEC.
According to him, a lead forensic auditor had earlier in March been appointed and among the eight newly appointed firms is a foreign firm, Ernst and Young, which he said would be in charge at the headquarter offices of the NDDC in Port Harcourt, to take charge of programmes and activities.
“The memo is basically the appointment of Field Forensic Auditors to undertake the forensic auditing of the Niger Delta Development Commission and the Field Forensic Auditors are going to be designated to go through the states of the Niger Delta region.
The approval of field forensic auditors is without prejudice to the lead forensic auditor that was approved sometime in March 2020 by the President
The NDDC under the supervision of the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs has been awash with scandals owing to uncompleted projects littered across the region with unexecuted contracts for which billions were paid
“This has really kick-started the commencement of evaluation of the abandoned projects of the NDDC in the last 19 years, estimated almost 12 thousand projects. At the end we will be in the position to know the ones that could be completed, the ones that will be useful, the low hanging fruits that could be plucked for the benefit of the people of the Niger Delta region and through this exercise, we will know the number of monies that have gone into the region in the last 19 years and whether the value we have received so far are commensurate with the monies that have entered into NDDC,” he said.
The Minister also explained that the N722.3m for the field forensic audit of the projects was drawn from the Presidency’s account due to the delays occasioned by the non-passage of the Commission’s 2020 budget by the National Assembly.
The field audit is expected to address the issues of misappropriation, bribery, corruption, fraud or anything of that sort that could have militated against the success of the agency in the last 19 years.
The council also approved a N101 million augmentation for the ongoing Ogbese Dam Project in Ekiti State.
Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, explained: “I presented a memo requesting the council to approve the revised estimated total cost of consultancy services for the ongoing Ogbese Dam Project in Ekiti State.
“This project is one of the 116 projects that we inherited. It was started in 2009 and it is one of the projects we prioritized for completion since we conducted an audit of all the ongoing projects in 2016. We have been working on it steadily.
“With the original contract period having expired and having also received approval from RETC for the actual construction of the project’s main work, it was important that we also extend the services of the project’s consultant so that there will be continued and uninterrupted effective supervision of the project.
“So, we got an augmentation of about N101 million and an extension of 24 months in favour of the consultant, Messrs. Geomatics Nig. Ltd. The council approved this memo.”
