Minister tasks new NDDC board on service delivery

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The Minister of Niger Delta Development, Engr. Abubakar Momoh has tasked the newly inaugurated Board members of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to deliver on their mandate or risk being removed.

Momoh also charged the newly inaugurated board on the need to change the narratives around the commission.

The Minister while inaugurating the Chiedu Ebie-led NDDC Board on Thursday in Abuja, explained that the current administration has a template to measure performance and any board that fails to measure up will be shown the way out.

He said, “And it is also necessary for you to know that this administration is quite different from others because they are going to be a lot of supervision and monitoring in order for us to deliver.

“Mr President as you are aware, two weeks ago, I as a minister and the Permanent Secretary signed performance bond, with Mr. President and the performance bond that we signed with Mr. President, has deliverables that are associated with the eight presidential priorities.

“And some of these deliverables have been assigned to various agencies under our supervision of which NDDC is one.

“And to that essence, you are expected to work towards delivering on those areas.

“And in order to do that as the Supervisory ministry, we are also there to assist you and guide you.”

The Minister further said the members of the board would be made to sign performance bonds just like the ministers.

“So it’s very, very important because the President is not joking with this, and from time to time, we are expected to present our reports and there is also a committee that will be set up by Mr. President to monitor the performance of each ministry and the agencies.

“So I think I want this one to be behind your mind so that as you start your work, you know exactly what is expected from you.”

While charging them further, Engr Momoh said, “We are all aware that over time, there have been a lot of complaints about NDDC.

“I want to also use this opportunity to appeal that this time around, we need to change the narratives.

“We cannot continue to do the same thing in the same way and we expect that we are going to achieve a different result.

“Collectively as we are here, I think apart from the three members representing other zones, well of course, I regard them as friends of the Niger Delta, every one of you is from Niger Delta zone,

“You definitely should be committed to how that zone can be transformed.

“All those negative statements around the commission let us as much as possible, this time to say well under the presidency of Mr. President, Senator Bola Tinubu and my leadership in the ministry and yourself operating at that level, that all those negative statements about NDDC are changed.

“And what am I saying, there are quite a number of abandoned projects in NDDC, there are quite a number of indebtedness in NDDC.

The Minister also charged members of the board to take it as a responsibility to develop the region.

“Because you are all from Niger Delta, and the progress of that area is supposed to be your utmost concern,” he said.

He, however, appealed to the new management to work towards offsetting the debt of the commission to its contractors, especially the local contractors with “very small amount, not more than N30 million”.

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