The Interim Management Committee (IMC) of the NDDC has been asked to refund all “unjustifiable funds” paid to staff of the commission.
This call was made by the Senate ad hoc committee investigating the misappropriation of funds in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC)
Also The panel also asserted that the NDDC report directly to President Muhammadu Buhari
The panel further asked that the president dissolve the IMC and set up a board for the commission.
These recommendations were read out by the chairman of the committee, Olubunmi Adetumbi, on Thursday.
This development is coming exactly two weeks after the acting Managing Director of the NDDC, Kemebradikumo Pondei, admitted that the commission spent N1.5 billion for staff as ‘COVID-19 relief funds’.
Mr pondei made this statement at the investigative hearing on the N40 billion corruption allegation against the commission.
A seven-man ad-hoc committee had been set up by the senate to investigate the Mismanagement of funds and reckless spending of NDDC allocations by the Interim Management Committee (IMC) of the commission.
The ad-hoc committee asserted that within the last three months, the commission has spent over N40 billion of the commission’s fund “without recourse to established processes of funds disbursement which has opened up further suspicion among stakeholders of the Niger Delta Region.”
The senate also condemned the IMC for “arbitrary use of executive power in an alleged wrongful sacking of management staff without recourse to established civil service rules and practice with the aim of allegedly concealing the fraudulent financial recklessness they have committed.”
Mr Adetumbi, while Presenting the report, said the NDDC spent 4.9 billion on medicals between October 2019 and May 2020.
According to the committee IMC spent billions of naira on “overseas travel allowance” at a time when countries were on lockdown and international flights were not operating.
He also said the explanations given by the IMC did not explain the need for “the reckless spending.”
Olubunmi Adetunmbi, said most of the spendings were extra-budgetary, adding that errors and infractions, as well as substantial payments, were made to staff in the form of unjustifiable allowances.
However, The lawmakers on Wednesday postponed the the hearing in other to embark on it’s plenary for reconsideration on the report of the committee.
(C) Control TV 2020.
