18 August 2015, Port Harcourt —Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, has described as untrue, allegations that N183.7 billion of the commission was missing.
Executive Director, Finance and Administration of the commission, Mr Henry Ogiri, who spoke in Abua, Ahoada West Local Government Area, Rivers State, said the allegation of missing fund contained in the report of the Auditor General of the Federation, Mr Samuel Ukura to the National Assembly was allegedly premature and misinforming.
He said: “I find the report very misleading and untrue. It tended to portray the current management as being responsible for the missing money when in fact the period covered by the report is 2008-2012. I will say without fear of contradiction that the Auditor-General’s report is premature. I say this because we are already putting together the responses to the queries which were for a period we were not in the commission.
“I completely disagree with the Auditor-General on this issue. Some of the claims he made in his report are things that do not hold water as at today. However, we are at an advanced stage of writing our own report. But from our preliminary findings, I do not believe that there is any money missing. The current management is quite capable of giving a proper account of the commission’s finances based on available records. It does not matter that we were not there for the period under review.”
He further alleged that some of the monies the Auditor General raised in his report were in a suspense account while the audit was on.
“We no longer pay mobilisation for contract jobs. Our contractors are now expected to demonstrate their competence and capability before payments are made. In addition, we now insist on proper scoping for our jobs, as well as holding pre-award meetings to tie all loose ends,” he said.
