- Ndoma-Egba urges more partnership with states
The Managing Director and Chief
Executive Officer of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Mr.
Nsima Ekere, at the weekend said, notwithstanding the expenditure of a
whopping $40 billion on capital projects, the commission has failed to
realise its 15-year master plan. The $40 billion represents 80 per cent
of the $50 billion required to implement the vision for the oil-rich
region.
Ekere gave this revelation at a
three-day retreat of the commission in Onne, Rivers State, where the
chairman of the NDDC Board and former Senate Leader, Senator Victor
Ndoma-Egba, advised the NDDC to cease seeing member-state governments as
competitors but as development partners in the overall interest of the
region.
He, however, contended that for the
commission to maximally realise its potential, it must firstly confront
and tame what he described in his paper as the “dangerous beasts” that
are stalling development and progress at the commission.
“The NDDC master plan originally
required 15 years to implement at a cost of $50 billion. The region has
received $40 billion over the past 10 years and sadly, there is little
evidence to show for the sums spent. Poor governance of self and
institutions are at the heart of public sector delivery challenges,” he
said, adding that the result of such a posting was disheartening.
Giving some practical approach to
tackling the NDDC challenge through his power-point presentation, Ekere,
who claimed to have drawn inspiration from JK Rowling, author of the
Harry Porter franchise, who recently released a movie, ‘Fantastic Beasts
and Where to Find Them’, identified seven vices he reckoned were at the
root of the NDDC challenge.
He listed the vices to include
pride/humility, gluttony/temperance, sloth/diligence, envy/kindness,
greed/charity, wrath/forgiveness and lust/chastity, arguing that the
impact of these vices on development was evident in the parity
evaluation amongst Nigeria, China and South Korea, with the two other
countries leaving the nation behind in terms of development indices
after 50 years of starting at a competitive level.
He also identified some of the
implications as “poorly delivered infrastructure that decays rapidly;
lack of social services to the citizenry; pervasive poverty and
resurgent militant attacks on oil and gas installations, which leads to
pollution of the environment and reduced income to the government and
the NDDC.”
These elements he described as the
beasts at the commission, he further noted, had affected majorly, the
organisational performance, financial performance as well as the NDDC
master plan, the three of which he further broke down into smaller and
comprehensible sub-headers.
But to tame the menace, he came up with a
4-R cage solution that could help address the challenges faced by the
board. They are Restructuring, Reforming, Restoring and Reaffirming. All
of these, he claimed, would help control the debt offspring, constrain
daily operations in line with the rules, chart a new course for the
board and ultimately, reiterate its commitment to doing that which is
right at all times.
Ekere also said with about N1.2 trillion
contingent liabilities on its balance sheet, the NDDC needed to find
ways to free funds for urgent development projects and programmes in
line with new strategic focus, in addition to effective deployment of
the 4-R cage.
Corroborating Ekere’s position, the
General Manager, External Relations at the Shell Petroleum Development
Company, Mr. Igo Weli, said contrary to insinuations that Shell was not
paying what it should for the development of the region, it had so far
paid N135 billion and $1.1 billion with the current exchange rate
differential.
He also mentioned other areas the
company had played its support part like the joint reconciliation of
statutory payments, which comes up once in two years; project/activity
specific partnership and collaboration like the Ogbia/Nembe road and the
support work of National Assembly committees on the region.
In the same vein, representative of
NEITI Executive Secretary, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, also hinted at some
of the remittances the agency had paid to the NDDC, a majority of them
not accounted for. According to NEITI FASD report of 2007 to 2011, he
said about N7.4billion funds allocated to 9 states were not accounted
for.
In addition, he said about 22 projects
were duplicated and valued at N1.188 billion, even as he claimed
companies were underpaid by $390 million in the years under review. He,
therefore, urged the commission to embrace cooperate governance that is
built on openness, efficiency and accountability.
In his remarks, however, Ndoma-Egba
said, “We must be partners, development partners to state and local
governments, and not competitors. Therefore, our vision should be the
creation of a regional economy with drivers that will be youth-friendly
as a motivated, educated and empowered youth remains the real source of
any nation, not oil or mineral resources.”
On the flip side, he said “An
ill-motivated, uneducated and un-empowered youth, on the other hand,
will be a curse and a danger to the nation. We, therefore, have a sacred
responsibility to make our youth a real resource and a blessing to our
region and country.”
“Governors complain that member-state
governments make no inputs whatsoever into the NDDC budgets, projects
and programmes and these are foisted on them to their disapproval.
Rather, than being a partner to member states, the commission is instead
in competition, not only with states, but with local governments in
terms of projects and programmes,” he said.
Quoting Section 7(1) (b) of the NDDC
Act, the former Senate Leader said the Act envisages a diversified but
integrated regional economy for the region, adding that “Youth-friendly
drivers for this regional economy will be ICT, sports, the creative
industry, agriculture and manufacturing supported by inter-modal
transportation, health, and education infrastructure with adequate power
supply.”
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