N/Assembly queries NDDC over missing N143bn in 2019 Budget

TRACKING___The National Assembly Joint Committee on Niger Delta Affairs, yesterday, queried the Interim Management Committee (IMC) of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), on N143 billion allegedly missing from the 2019 budget of the Commission.

The issue of the alleged missing figure came to the fore during the Commission’s budget defence session with the National Assembly Joint Committee.

The top management staff of the Commission was led by the Acting Managing Director, Professor Daniel Pondei. Pondei had in his presentation before the Joint Committee, led by Senator Peter Nwaoboshi (PDP, Delta North), submitted that the Commission received N305.5billion as revenue in the 2019 and spent N122billion from the amount received with the balance of N183.2billion.

He said: “In compliance with the provision of the 2019 Appropriation Act, we implemented the 2019 capital budget till May 31.

“On the expenditure side, 2019 budget implementation was hindered by the delay in its approval and release coupled with the COVID- 19 global pandemic. “Only recurrent expenditure which runs from January 1st – December 31st 2019 was implemented substantially”.

The Chairman of House of Representatives Committee on NDDC, Honourable Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, however, faulted the 2019 budget report of the Commission as he disclosed that the report submitted to the Joint Committee only revealed N40 bil lion.

He queried the Managing Director of the Commission on the discrepancies observed in the 2019 budget report presentation.

At this point, Pondei quickly requested for the withdrawal of 2019 budget details in order to address the issue of discrepancies of N143billion raised by the federal lawmaker.

The request however, did not go down well with other members of the Committee but they were later pacified by Senator Nwaoboshi, who yielded to the request of NDDC boss and adjourned the budget presentation till next week Tuesday