… ‘N641m paid to Clear Point to identify NDDC projects’
The Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, Kemebradikumo Pondei, on Monday, testified before the House of Representatives Committee probing the activities of the commission, debunking many of the allegations of corruption against his Interim Management Committee.
He confirmed before the members that about N72 billion had been received from the Federal Government between February and June 2020, noting that N38.6bn was expended on capital projects, while a total of N20.5bn was spent on recurrent expenditure.
The Acting MD, who had earlier apologised to the House for walking out on members last week, during his earlier appearance, said most of the contractors of the Commission, who were being owed for about three years, had been paid, adding that the contracts were “historical” contracts that were not awarded under his watch.
He said, “A large proportion of the debts cleared were a backlog of expenditure. We had to pay due to continuous embarrassment by creditors. Duty tour allowance had not been paid for three years; we paid. All the hotels in Port Harcourt were being owed by NDDC, we paid.
“Transcorp Hilton was being owed about N30m; we paid. All the media houses were being owed. The current IMC has not awarded any scholarship.”
Pondei told the lawmakers that the Commission paid out N500,000 each to scholarship beneficiaries, and debunked allegations that he and Dr. Cairo Ojougbo, a member of the NDDC Committee, paid themselves funds meant for the scholarship scheme.
Asked whether the spending was in line with the approved budget of the Commission, Pondei could not readily give an answer but maintained that he would provide the answers later, while trying to lay his hands on the approved budget.
The lawmakers also asked if he derived the power to spend a particular N1.5bn, which the Acting MD had said was spent “to take care of ourselves” in the 2019 budget, Pondei said he must have said that in error.
“I must have said that in error. But that figure is not correct. It was actually N1.32bn,” he claimed.
The highpoint of the interrogation was when the representatives wanted the Acting MD to clear the air on a payment of N641million to Clear Point Communication.
Explaining that the payment was part of N2.5bn that was in for forensic audit in the 2019 budget, he said that the payment was for the recipient company to help identify NDDC projects in 185 Local Government Areas.
“There were allowances for coordinators per LGA, training, setting up of information desks. These coordinators are the ones to identify the sites of the NDDC projects. We needed people who would guide the NDDC. Clear Point has been a consultant before we came in. They are putting help desks, communications desks in all the places to locate the projects,” Pondei explained.
He was also asked to shed more light on another N536m payment to a company for ‘Save Life in the Niger Delta area’, but the embattled NDDC boss tried to evade the questions, amid continuous bombardment by the representatives, one after the other.
Pondei slumped while responding to the barrage of questions, but was revived before he was rushed out of the venue of the hearing.
Update later…
