Poor management, bane of NDDC – Board nominees

Nominees to the Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission sent to the Senate for screening by President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday declared that lack of proper understanding of the mandate and poor management of funds and personnel were the bane of the agency, 14 years after it was established.

They also identified the inability of the past management of the agency to encourage community participation and duplication of roles with sister agencies as being responsible for abandoning series of multi-billion naira projects scattered all over the nine states that make up the mandate areas.

The nominees stated this in Abuja when they appeared for screening before the Senator James Manager-led committee on the Niger Delta.

The chairmanship-nominee for the commission, Senator Bassey Ewa-Henshaw, blamed the numerous problems confronting the agency on high level of waste and inefficiency.

He noted, “The next board of NDDC must evolve change that will alter the status quo in the agency.”

Ewa-Henshaw also gave the assurance that the new board, when constituted, would focus largely on infrastructural development.

He lamented that white elephant projects had been executed since the creation of the commission, “instead of living up to its responsibility of creating wealth, initiating developmental projects and serving as a catalyst for development of the Niger Delta region.”

The managing director nominee, Mr. Bassey Dan-Abia, also lamented that the commission had been bedeviled by a series of crises since its inception because different groups of people appointed to serve at various times had failed to observe the principles of their mandates.

He regretted that such groups had failed to answer basic questions which ought to guide them in the effective delivery of services that they were supposed to render.

He said, “Instead of sitting down and living up to their responsibilities, past executives of the NDDC became carried away by the influence of their office and in the process, became guilty of misplaced priorities.”