The mandate of the Niger Delta Development Commission is overwhelming, daunting and challenging…This report highlights the course its new helmsman, Nsima Ekere, is charting to tackle the challenges.
Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Managing Director, Nsima Ekere’s expose on the state of finances of the commission and its operation in the last twenty years, clearly shows how daunting the task of fulfilling the mandate of the commission has been.
Ekere had said, after an extra-ordinary meeting of the board shortly after its inauguration, “We have liabilities that run into well over a trillion naira. We will look at the projects that have given rise to this liability. Then, we will vet them and see which projects we can go ahead with and those we will discontinue because some of these projects were even not properly awarded in the first place.
“By the time we carry out the auditing, it will help us. Then of course, the audit will enable us to bring NDDC back to its core mandate. We will work along these lines that we have highlighted and make sure that we make some remarkable difference in the lives of the people of the Niger Delta.”
Other informed sources say the commission is owing contractors over N300 billion.The same sources also say the percentage of job completion hovered around 25 percent and only moved to 41 percent last year
With this in mind, Ekere, said that henceforth the Commission would ensure that all payments to contractors were tied to bank guarantees. He warned: “We will hold the banks accountable.”
The MD further stated: “Most of the NDDC advance payments that have been made were based on bank guarantees. What that means is that the bank is guaranteeing the performance of the contractor. So, the first thing we will do will be to go after these banks that guaranteed projects that have failed. We will demand that they give us back our money where the work done doesn’t justify the money that was paid.”
Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, SAN, chairman of the board also regretted that the public images of NDDC had suffered because of the procedures adopted by its procurement unit in the past. “The Commission has not had the most edifying of public images and that is because the procurement processes were opaque,” he said.
The NDDC Chairman stated that a transparent process would help the Commission to get all its outstanding funds. He said: “We will persuade those who are in arrears to pay and one of the easiest ways of getting them to pay is by ensuring that our processes were transparent. The moment they see a certain level of transparency, it will encourage them to live up to their obligations to the Commission. When the processes are opaque, people will hold back.”
Giving reasons for the extra-ordinary board meeting, Senator Ndoma-Egba explained that management could only implement policies approved by the board and since they had just taken over, it was necessary to quickly put policies on ground to enable management take off.
Senator Ndoma-Egba restated his position that the new NDDC board and management would be driven by a regional vision. “If you recall, at the inauguration and handing over ceremonies, I said very clearly, that we will not be competing with local governments because ours is a regional mandate. We have to stick to that regional mandate by spreading development across the region.”
Beyond the procurement process and projects fine tuning, Ekere has also stated the commitment of the Governing Board and Management to fashion a new path for the sustainable development of the Niger Delta region.
Ekere spoke on the day the new Board, took over the reins of the interventionist agency at the NDDC headquarters.
He said the new NDDC will operate a 4-R Initiative, as a strategic roadmap for development, adding that “this would involve restructuring the balance sheet, reforming the governance protocols, restoring the Commission’s core mandate and reaffirming its commitment to doing what was right and proper.”
The NDDC boss reaffirmed the need for cooperation in the Niger Delta, stating: “We will work to promote cooperation, collaboration and synergy among stakeholders, such as state and local governments, oil and gas companies, donor agencies, civil society organizations, community-based organizations and other traditional institutions, in order to make regional development a shared vision and common aspiration.
“We would have to do things differently to improve the transparency of our processes, leverage technology to increase accountability and efficiency, consult stakeholders frequently, engage proactively and be creative about the programmes that we design, to uplift the people and the region.”
Ekere said the focus of the Commission would be on intervention programmes that would deliver real measurable developmental outcomes for the region and its citizens.
“Five priorities of NDDC,” he said, “will be to focus on regional development and integration; ecological management and health awareness; stakeholder engagement and work with development partners and NGOs; human capital development and fostering youth engagement as well as developing the non-oil sector to attract new industries.”
Ekere commended the deep interest shown by President Muhammadu Buhari in changing the Niger Delta narrative. “The recent engagements with leaders and stakeholders of the region, the inauguration of a new Board, the transfer of oversight responsibility over the Commission to the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and the Lagos-Calabar rail link project. These are significant actions that are bound to impact the region positively,” Ekere said.
He noted that the new board was starting at a critical time for the region and the country, highlighting reduced revenues resulting from the combined effect of decline in global oil prices and the crippling economic sabotage of Nigeria’s oil production activities.
According to him, “NDDC needs to look to innovative and more efficient ways of doing things. We need to find new partners to help execute our mandate for the Niger Delta; strengthen existing relationships to ensure that all stakeholders are working towards common goals and promote the peace that is necessary for the development of the region.”
At the same function,the Chairman of the board, Senator Ndoma-Egba, remarked that the NDDC was the first to get a full board under the current administration of the All Progressive Congress, APC, saying, for this reason, the NDDC should be guided by the principles of change being espoused by the Federal Government.
He said: “Things will be done differently because circumstance have changed. The economy is now more challenging and when the times are changing you must get more innovative. We must cut excesses. So, we must be leaner. Our books must be cleaned up. Our projects must be properly supervised and processes, must be audited. Our finances must be audited so that we are lean and efficient.
“The times are different and we must change with the times. We must be creative and more efficient. I will chose the part of history that brought change. I will not be part of the group that would want to remain with the status quo.”
Senator Ndoma-Egba assured that the Commission would design programmes and projects to engage the young men and women of the region to ensure that they were gainfully employed, stating: “We will teach them how to fish.”
He regretted that the NDDC is perceived in some quarters as a contract awarding factory. “We must rebrand. We mush refocus. We are determined to change the story in the NDDC,” he declared.
For the board, it is not all talk. Ekere has started walking the talk by visiting priority projects.
At the site of one of them, the 12-floor permanent headquarters of the Commission in Port Harcourt, Ekere said the building will be ready for inauguration by President Muhammadu Buhari before the end of next year.
Leading the Executive Director Projects, Engr. Samuel Adiogbe, the Executive Director Finance and Administration, Mr. Mene Derek and other directors of the Commission around the building, Ekere said that the Commission would set up a taskforce to be headed by the Executive Director Projects to ensure that the project was completed before the target date, adding that he would like to have the privilege of inviting Mr. President to inaugurate the new building.
The NDDC Chief Executive Officer frowned at a situation where the Commission’s projects were unduly delayed. He said: “I think it is sad that a project that started 20 years ago is yet to be completed and we are still talking about site inspection. A child that was born when this building started is almost through with university education by now. So, it’s very sad that we are inspecting a project 20 years after commencement. We will look at what the issues are, including contractor’s capacity to deliver on this project.
“This project must be completed on time and I will not condone non-performance by our contractors.”
Ekere remarked that the completion rate of NDDC projects all over the region was not very encouraging. “I remember that shortly after our appointment, I met with some International funding partners and other stakeholders and everybody seem to be very concerned about the state of abandoned projects in the region,” he said.
The MD said that the Commission was already carrying out “a couple of audits because we need to agree on the way forward in terms of prioritizing the projects.” He said that it was important to determine the projects that the Commission could afford to complete, depending on the ones that have the highest impact on communities.
Ekere declared: “I don’t believe that there is any sense in starting a thousand projects and completing only one. So we will check the number of new projects and then concentrate on completing on-going ones. We want to complete our projects.”
The NDDC boss said that henceforth all projects being executed by the Commission would be covered by bank guarantees. “Our legal department will prepare agreement performance guarantees and further payments for projects will be guided by such agreements,” he said.
The NDDC Executive Director Finance and Administration, noted that the contractor did not manage the financial resources available to him well. He stated that more than 90 per cent of the funds had been released by the Commission.
The NDDC Head of Project Monitoring Services, Felix Aomreore, said the headquarters complex, which was initiated by the defunct Oil Minerals Producing Area Development Commission, OMPADEC, was initially conceived to be 14 floors.
He said that from the assessment of his directorate, the project had achieved 60 per cent completion. He explained that the headquarters complex would include other ancillary facilities such as a medical centre, car park, restaurant, bank, among others.
The project coordinator, Felix Darko, assured the NDDC directors that they were working according to schedule and set standards. He said that the contractors involved in the project were determined to complete the multi-storey building on time.
He said that all the service equipment for the main building was already on the site waiting for installation. Other electrical equipment such as lifts and escalators are also on ground.
Ekere has also visited state offices like Cross River State, where he reiterated the commitment of the current board and management of the commission to improve the lives of the peoples of the Niger Delta area.
“The current NDDC board remains committed to all stakeholders in the Niger Delta area through our dedication to ensuring that the original mandate of the NDDC is effectively and properly implemented,” he said.
Stakeholders are happy with the new board’s body language. Coordinating Secretary, Partners for Peace and Progress in the Niger Delta, Nkeneke Efo, says the group is mobilising youths of the region to support the new management to ensure “there is an atmosphere of peace and tranquility throughout the region for the management and board to concentrate on the delivery of its core mandate, that of improving the lives and situations of the people and communities of the region”
Efo said the group believes the new team is serious in its duties.
“The new team is a serious one, they started work almost immediately. As new managing director, Obong Nsima Ekere had the luxurious opportunity to take a two weeks break in the name of studying files. But what did he do? He started work immediately. By his speeches, there is excitement and expectations that he will set the commission on a new path that will see the mandate of the commission fulfilled”
