President Goolduck Ebele Jonathan declared Tuesday in Abuja that his Administration will take prompt and decisive action to sanitize the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and transform it into a much more effective organization.
Speaking at the ceremonial presentation to him of the report of the Presidential Committee established in July to undertake an inquiry into the crises in the NDDC, President Jonathan pledged that the Federal Government will implement remedial measures to ensure that the commission begins to give the people of the Niger Delta real value for the huge sums of money committed to it annually.
“We will do whatever it takes to sanitize the NDDC,” the President assured members of the committee after formally receiving their report from the Chairman, Mr. Stephen Oronsaye.
Mr. Oronsaye said that the committee had undertaken its assignment expeditiously and with proper diligence, being very mindful of President Jonathan’s determination to take genuine development to the Niger Delta and all other parts of Nigeria.
He told the President that that the committee had visited the NDDC Headquarters in Port Harcourt and interacted with its management, staff and stakeholders.
It also received a memorandum from the Presidential Monitoring Committee on the NDDC which substantially corroborated its own findings, Mr. Oronsaye said.
Describing the NDDC as “acutely crises ridden”, the Oronsaye Committee recommended “immediate intervention” to reverse the decay in the commission.
President Jonathan had late yesterday at the Presidential Villa, also received several reports from the NDDC Presidential Monitoring Committee headed by Chief Isaac Jemide.
Receiving the reports, President Jonathan declared that the era of contractors abandoning projects after receiving funds from government was over in Nigeria.
He said that his Administration will undertake a clinical review of the reports submitted by the Presidential Monitoring Committee and request law enforcement agencies to apprehend contractors identified as having defaulted after receiving funds for NDDC projects.
“Project abandonment is totally unacceptable to us. The era of contractors taking money and not doing their work is over. If the NDDC is to act as a catalyst for development in the Niger Delta, then we must act to redeem the situation,” President Jonathan said.
