How NNDC contractors absconded with N70.4bn mobilisation fees – Auditor-General
The Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation (OAGF)
yesterday alleged that a number of contractors handling various projects of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), between 2008 and 2012, disappeared with N70bn mobilization fees without reporting to their various project sites.
An assistant director, public accounts committee division in the OAGF, Mr Emmanuel Akpan, made the revelation while making submissions before the Senate Committee on Public Accounts (SPAC).
According to him, while the NDDC’s office in response to a query issued it by the OAGF over the development said projects worth N11bn were affected by the scam, the auditor-general’s office, based on findings made so far, strongly believed that the total sum of the scam is N70,495, 993, 761, approximately, N70.4bn.
“There is need for NDDC officials to practically prove that contractors involved in close to N60bn gap they are trying to create, have actually gone to site and executed their projects not on paper but physically on ground”, he said.
He further disclosed that not less than 1,733 contractors were involved in the scam.
But while officials from the office of the accountant-general of the federation concurred to the submission made by the auditor–general over NDDC‘s contract awards and execution from 2008 to 2012, NDDC officials led by their acting managing director, Ibim Semenitari, disagreed vehemently saying that latest records available to them, indicated that N11bn worth and not N70bn projects were affected by the contract scam.
The commission’s director of finance, Jimoh Egbejule said the commission had on its own audited the various projects awarded during the period under review and discovered that the said scam affected N11bn worth projects and not N70.4bn as reported by the office of the auditor- general.
These contradictory submissions reportedly made the committee, through its chairman, Senator Andy Uba ( PDP Anambra South) to adjourn the sitting for a month.
The committee’s chairman said: “There is need to stop this public hearing abruptly so as to allow the three parties time to sit down and harmonize their findings and reports on the subject matter.
“Definitely this committee is not satisfied with what has happened but we have to give them time to meet and harmonize whatever they can harmonize before coming back to us to present their updated reports upon which we can now do the proper probes without one agency saying, it doesn’t have the reports the other is presenting and so on and so forth.
“Unfortunately, the new MD did not know anything, she didn’t understand what was going on.They didn’t carry her along but I’m glad that she’s willing to work, she’s ready to go through it with a fine toothcomb, line by line with the auditor general and accountant general’s queries to make sure that there is prompt response to the queries.
“But I am glad that in one month’s time, am sure we would know the truth about the whole matter.”
The NDDC boss, Ibim Seminitari, on her part, promised to go over the records properly within the one month duration given, with a view to later presenting before it, ‘the truth and nothing but the truth about the matter.’
