The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) ultimately plans to construct a highway to link all coastal communities in the Niger Delta region.
The Managing Director of the commission, Mr. Nsima Ekere, who disclosed this on Friday while featuring on an NTA International breakfast programme, “Good morning Nigeria,” said the highway will be done in phases, starting with the road from Illaje, a major oil-producing community in Ondo State, to Lekki, an industrial hub in Lagos State.
To this end, the commission has already signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ondo State Government for the construction of the road which will shorten the travel distance from Ondo State to Lagos State to 45 minutes.
Stressing that the NDDC board was keen on executing regional development and integration projects, Ekere said the commission was partnering with the Delta State Government on the construction of a road from Warri to the Maritime University, Okerenkoko, which is surrounded by water.
“We believe that NDDC was set up to help regional development and integration,” he emphasized.
Ekere made it clear that the commission was more interested in completing abandoned and ongoing projects than starting new ones, adding that 70 per cent of its funds were now devoted to completing those old projects.
The NDDC boss stressed that the commission read the riot act to its consultants recently to ensure that its projects were properly designed and executed to correct the anomalies of the past.
Lamenting that inadequate funding has been a major challenge of the NDDC, he disclosed that the commission has contractual liabilities of over N1.4 trillion which was responsible for the situation where only 40 per cent of its 8,300 projects were completed.
Ekere lauded President Muhammadu Buhari for directing the Minister for Finance and her Budget and National Planning counterpart to work out with the NDDC a payment plan for the N1.7 trillion the Federal Government was owing the commission.
He stated that the NDDC has bridged the disconnect that previously existed between it and its development partners including State Governments and International Oil Companies by holding a monthly forum of its Partnership for Sustainable Development.
The NDDC boss said the commission has further carried along State Governments by involving them in the preparation of its 2017 budget through budget committees in the nine member-states chaired by state representatives in the commission.
He said the NDDC was going beyond infrastructural development to sustainable agricultural, industrial and technological development of the youths of the region.
This necessitated, according to him, the N5 billion partnership with NEXIM Bank for agricultural development, the partnership with Small and Medium Scale Enterprise Development Agency (SMEDAN) to revive and turn its industrial development centres in the Niger Delta to enterprise hubs and the agreement with the government of neighbouring Sao Tome and Principe to transfer its excess internet capacity to the Niger Delta region.
On the commission’s controversial scholarship scheme, Ekere said the management was working to completely sanitize it on case-by-case basis by ensuring that only genuine students had their fees paid directly to schools against the old practice where some students on one-year Master’s degree programmes ended up receiving fees paid into their private accounts for a period of up to seven years.
On the controversy over the NDDC board’s tenure, he pointed out that the Secretary to the Government of the Federation had clarified that the board was to serve for four years in line with the law but noted that the issue has been politicized by very few persons.
