President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered a forensic audit of the operations of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). He gave the order on Thursday in Abuja, following the persistent criticisms of the operations of the agency.
Receiving governors of the states that make up the Commission, led by Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State, the President directed that the audit should cover the operations of NDDC from 2001 to 2019. He said what was on the ground in the South-South region does not justify the huge resources that have been made available to the organisation. “I try to follow the Act setting up these institutions, especially the NDDC,” President Buhari was quoted as saying in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina.
He stressed, “With the amount of money that the Federal Government has religiously allocated to the NDDC, we will like to see the results on the ground; those that are responsible for that have to explain certain issues. “The projects said to have been done must be verifiable. You just cannot say you spent so much billions and when the place is visited, one cannot see the structures that have been done. The consultants must also prove that they are competent.”
