…Takes Case To Senate
For what he described as flagrant abuse of statutory procedure and due diligence in contract execution at the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, a legal practitioner, Mr. Ojeh Godwin has called for an urgent probe of the activities of the leadership of the NDDC Interim Management committee.
The petitioner queried why the supposed committee set up to restore sanity and rescue the interventionist agency has gotten itself involved in same acts of corruption and fraudulent transactions which the past leadership of the commission had been accused of.
He noted that the interim committee on its own had accused the past leadership of NDDC of poor performance, poor project delivery, abandoned projects, pervasive corruption abuse of power and due process.
Mr. Ojeh Godwin had particularly criticized the former Acting MD of NDDC, Gbene Dr. Joi Nunieh of throwing caution to the winds as well as Dr. Caro Ojougboh the Acting Executive Director Finance and Administration of the interim management committee of the NDDC, Mr. Ibanga Bassey and other members of the management team of the interim committee whose mandate was to oversee the forensic audit of the NDDC as ordered by president Muhammadu Buhari, saying that the team betrayed the trust reposed in them.
The lawyer stated that, rather than exposing the corruption, they had accused their predecessors of they chose to perpetrate fraudulent act and abused of laid down statutory procedure under the NDDC Act and the public procurement act.
He alleged that the supposedly acclaimed contract verification committee led then by Gbene Dr. Joi Nunieh, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, Mr. Ibanga Bassey and other members of the management team who allegedly “approved the sums of money to the tune of over N4 billion on spurious contracts in the name of supplying “maternity Delivery Kits,” “cholera vaccines,” lassa fever kits” and “outstanding science equipment”.
And, in a petition to the Senate President and the Speaker House of Representatives, the Benin based lawyer accused Nunieh of dispensing fund not captured under any budgetary allocation or appropriation.
He stated that their acts of unilateral approval of huge sum of payment was reflected in the memo dated January 17, 2020. “where they directed that the summarized information on the Health and Education Projects listed in a memo dated 3rd December, 2019 and January 10, 2020 be treated for payment.
Similarly, in a petition to President Buhari, the lawyer alleged that the leadership of the interim management committee carryied out surreptitious selective payments on “spurious, non-existence emergency contracts which were in direct conflict with and antithetical to the campaign against corrupt practices in public office”.
He called for thorough investigations of all the allegations.
