Secret Reporters No place to hide
Secret Reporters
The crisis rocking the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) may have taken a new twist with more revelations showing the deeply rooted fraud allegedly perpetrated by the Interim Management Committee (IMC) who keep accusing external forces of trying to frustrate the audit process ongoing in the commission while using fraudulent tactics to enrich their pockets.
A document obtained by SecretReporters revealed that contrary to claims on national TV by the Executive Director of Projects in the Interim Management Committee of the Niger Delta Development Commission, Mr Cairo Ojougboh, that no contract was awarded relating to COVID-19, the committee have been engaging in alleged clandestine deals as it was recently discovered that a contract was awarded to a company called Julius Dinga Nig Ltd for “consultancy for the provision of publicity on the prevention of the spread of Coronavirus”.
Despite a record of been listed among tax and mining defaulters in Nigeria, the dubious contract according to the document was approved on April 21, 2020, at a mind-blowing sum of N112.4million for the Edo state-based company registered on November 18, 2009, which specializes in machinery lease, stones and dust quarry. Ironically, a company that has no idea of media services but only into mining of quarry and stones was given the award for such job at inflated cost.
The N112.4million surprisingly was just for payment for consultancy service only and not for the provision of the publicity service which according to sources will cost much more than the amount earlier approved. Findings from the document further hints on well-orchestrated embezzlement, theft, corruption and fraud as all approvals were endorsed on the same day, meaning the file went round all approving authorities same day.
It however, remains a shock how the same NDDC through the interim Executive Director Projects, Cairo Ojougboh was criticizing the former board of financial recklessness while they and the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio was using the guise of the lockdown to milk the commission dry as calls abound for the disbandment of the IMC who had a mission to correct the financial mess by the former board but has decided to enrich their pockets with mind-blowing looting.
The silence of PMB, even as all these mess by his appointees range, leaves so much to desire as to whether he’s actually in charge.