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Non-governmental organization, Social Development Integrated Centre (Social Action), has applauded the various groups from the Niger Delta region “that have continued to demand accountability and transparency from the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC),” noting that this is indeed instrumental in the call for an effective and efficient commission.
Social Action’s programmes coordinator, Isaac Botti, in a release, said resources from the region account for over 70% of the nation’s revenue and 90% of foreign earnings (export), however, the years of neglect and abandonment have increased the suffering of the people of the region.
“The NDDC, an agency set up to implement critical infrastructural has rather negatively impacted the economic and social development of the Niger Delta people.
“As revealed in its forensic audit, the commission has wasted over N3 trillion on some abandoned 13,000 projects across the region. All of this is a result of monumental corruption and hence, calls for strategic efforts to tackle it,” he said.
Social Action charged citizens of the Niger Delta region to “take the bull by the horn and drive the change narrative for the most advantageous performance of the commission.
“We call on the people of the Niger Delta regions to work with other civil society organizations to collectively push the bar of accountability and strengthen the regional mechanism to ensure a corrupt-free and improved NDDC.
“We call on all stakeholders to engage their political representatives in a nationwide strategic dialogue to identify challenges and design a workable path to ensure that NDDC delivers on its mandates of catalyzing development in the region.
“We also call on the Federal Government to cooperate with the people of the region to rid the NDDC of corruption by publishing the Forensic Audit, inaugurating a substantive NDDC board, and addressing other malfeasances in the commission.
“In our shared responsibility to achieve a transparent and accountable governance system, all CSOs must join hands with the citizens of the region to demand an open, transparent, and responsible NDDC. It is only by mobilizing all the arsenals at our collective disposal that we can get the NDDC to its right course and advance the sustainable development of the region.”
