NDDC: LET'S AUDIT THE FORENSIC AUDIT REPORT
September 3, 2021 | News
At the presentation to President Mohammadu Buhari, the moments Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio and lead forensic auditor, Alhaji Kabir Ahmed,
-By Zik Gbemre
NDDC: LET'S AUDIT THE FORENSIC AUDIT REPORT
After 16 months rigmarole (a lengthy and complicated procedure), Minister Akpobio has now disappointed with turning in a censored, highly shallow forensic report, if the diversionary points mentioned at the presentation to President Buhari are the key highlights of the report.
The forensic audit, the most expensive in Nigeria, must go beyond telling the people what we already know to exposing the damning ills of the commission, identify culprits and spell sanctions.
Nobody will regard the audit report if it's not wholly made public by government.
At the presentation to President Mohammadu Buhari, the moments Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio and lead forensic auditor, Alhaji Kabir Ahmed, murmured what they may have captured among the key highlights in the sixteen months determined NDDC forensic audit, the first reaction that came to mind was, let's audit this shambolic forensic audit.
And for this singular purpose, auditing the forensic audit report, we insist that the Federal Government (FG) makes public the said audit report in line with the Freedom Of Information (FOI) Act. We may not have seen the full report, but predictably, we sense, from the report presentation, that there may have been no forensic audit in true sense of the word. No commitment to have one from the very beginning.
Akpabio have succeeded in putting words in the mouth of the highly guided auditors, to tell, as we had worried about, a predetermined script of what the minister wants Buhari to hear. Arguably, I had warned that the audit would be irritatingly shallow when deliberately, the Minister and his rapidly overhauled NDDC caretakers, from interim management committee to a Sole Administrator, were busy pre-empting the forensic audit with all kinds of indictments on preferred targets.
Before conclusion of official engagement of lead auditor without any honest selection process, Akpabio and his caretakers had inundated the media with an unnamed consultant who was pocketing perceived free One Billion Naira monthly NDDC money on the guise of collecting statutory funding contributions from International Oil Companies (IOCs) on behalf of the commission.
Before the forensic audit commenced, Akpabio had threatened to expose federal lawmakers highjacking NDDC projects, later displaced Cairo Ojougbo who had fingered a Delta Senator who highjacked hundreds of ghost NDDC contracts, smiling to the bank without executing one. Even Akpabio was accused by Joy Nunieh, as their shortlived romance crashed, of benefiting ghost NDDC contracts.
These flood of indictments resonated so much that the public had been expectant of of a forensic audit that would bomb those who have made occupation out of stealing blindly on the Niger Delta commonwealth that is NDDC.
It's instructive to hear the Minister of Justice who received the report on behalf of Buhari recap the essence of the audit, when he said, " Federal government (FG) is particularly concerned with the colossal loss occasioned by uncompleted and unverified development projects in the Niger Delta Region, in spite of the huge resources made available to uplift the living standard of the citizens.
"Federal government in consequence, apply the law to remedy the deficiencies outlined in the audit report as appropriate, including but not limited to initiation of criminal investigations, prosecution, recovery of funds not properly utilized for the public purposes for which they were meant for review of the laws to reposition and restructure the NDDC for the efficiency of better service delivery amongst others."
But curiously, how well has Akpabio's self determined forensic audit reflected the said "deficiencies" against expectations of Nigerians? Of all the critical issues expected to be addressed, what did Akpabio and his lead consultant highlight on Thursday? That the "forensic audit discovered 13, 700 abandoned NDDC projects across the Niger Delta.
That the report recommended downsizing of an NDDC board and its membership should be part-time to check overhead cost on the part of the NDDC board. That oil companies were owing the commission $4 billion.
The auditors further recommended "review of NDDC Masterplan to make it mandatory for all development projects to be in line with the plan and on needs basis."
Seriously, were this gibberish/unintelligible/meaningless the most critical reasons Akpabio desperately stage managed, perhaps the most expensive forensic audit in Nigeria, if not the entire world, ever.
First all, the forensic audit was not to tell us what we already know. 13,700 abandoned projects, IOCs owing NDDC were not the issues. Who are the contractors and what kind of contracting process allow them to abandon projects with impunity, after collecting money to what tune?
The report recommends downsizing NDDC board and making it part time. I challenge FG to go through the establishment Act. The NDDC board from onset was designed to be part time. It's a demonstration of extreme greed that made successive boards turned their role into an alternative government where the convoys of a single director competes with that of a governor or the President.
Recall that the foundation Managing Director (MD), Godwin Omene, the only known technocrat to have managed the agency, checkmated then Chairman Onyema Ugochukwu to not overstep his bound as part time board member when he was bent on competing with the MD on day to day running of the commission.
So, recommending downsizing is understatement. I make bold to say NDDC board as conceived never needed the 13 storey complex and ancillary buildings as board headquarters where apart from the bloated staff and hangers on called aides to board members, the contingent of private guards, Njgeria police officers and Civil Defence Corps officers, DSS officers, etc watching over the place and securing the board directors alone is more than six Divisional Police Offices put together.
The NDDC board also never needed the previous rental building it was paying over a billionaire naira annual rent on. It was too large, too wasteful. Neither did the commission needed several directorates, several employed directors and staff with redundant offices.
At best, a single or two storey building would have been adequate. After All, by its design, the mandated state offices were supposed to be the main operational bases of the NDDC. The board members were to meet to approve budgets, projects for the states, presented after careful needs assessment by the oil producing communities and other relevant stakeholders in the Niger-Delta region.
It was not the design of NDDC that every contractor must come to the commission's headquarters in Port Harcourt to apply, submit, bid, win, get approval and pursue payments for projects done in the mandated states. The board members, by share greed, made the Commissioners representing the state and entire state offices staff redundant, to such extent that some contractors never interact with the state offices before executing projects and getting payments from Port Harcourt.
The audit report talked about ensuring that all NDDC development projects were in line with the plan. I ask, did any law in the Master Plan permit irrelevant projects in the first place? Was it not as a result of greed that the master plan was trashed and NDDC became ground for quick win emergency projects and palliatives sharing?
In a nutshell, Akpabio's censored forensic audit has not told Niger Deltans and the Federal government of Nigeria what they want to hear. This was undoubtedly, as I have highlighted, the most expensive audit ever. After signing the "huge rewards contracts" for the consultant auditors, twice Akpabio and his Sole Administrator patronised them with fleet of new cars including several patrol vehicles to join security guards at extra cost.
So we want a full audit report. One that spells who abandoned what contract. They told us the forensic audit will name the fraudster who was collecting one billion naira monthly as commission for picking funding from IOCs. They said the audit would name every Senator, House Representatives member or other public office holder who has made billions of naira from running ghost contracts in NDDC. We want these reflected in the audit.
Beyond that, most NDDC contracts were done shabbily. The forensic audit report should expose inflated contracts executed in shabby way not commensurate with the contract sum.
Very important is the issue of internal collaboration. It has been established, proven, that the sleaze/immoral on the commission couldn't have been so profound without the staff of the commission aiding and abetting to share from the loots. The forensic report won't be credible without exposing staff collusion and sanctions spelt.
For recommendations, I state:
NDDC is not an IOC with oil operations to have the extravagant complex it calls headquarters. To agree with the forensic audit recommendation of a part time board which is stating the obvious, I recommend that the headquarters complex be sold or put to better government use.
Closely related to one above, NDDC is over staffed with redundant staffs. The downsizing should affect the bloated staff to a streamlined workforce of efficient hand. Likewise, the hangers on, called aides to the board members are too unnecessary. Only a few personal details would be adequate for part time board members.
The security details for the board and entire commission is fraudulently oversized. If the NDDC was not being abused as a patronage agency sharing money with entitlement mentality, the Chairman and rest of the board don't deserve more than two police officers and a few guards in their homes. FG must stop to maintain a military cantonment or police divisions in NDDC headquarters and the collapsed state offices.
FG must stop abusing or undermining the Act establishing the NDDC board. The Act has no place for interim boards, most inciting of all, sole administrator. It's a display of corruption to introduce this extraneous dimensions into the act. The President must stop personalizing the NDDC as a patronage agency for sharing appointments to partisan loyalists. That's bad. The agency is supposed to be run by technocrats, not political loyalists.
The law designed for an NDDC with stronger mandated State Offices, not a supreme board members dictating contracts from their comfort zones at the NDDC headquarters.
Above all, the concerns I have raised would not be ascertained if the forensic audit is not made public to know to what extent it has met set objectives.
As a matter of public interest, let's audit this forensic audit report.
Zik Gbemre.
September 4, 2021
We Mobilize Others To Fight For Individual Causes As If Those Were Our Causes
-By Zik Gbemre
NDDC: LET'S AUDIT THE FORENSIC AUDIT REPORT
After 16 months rigmarole (a lengthy and complicated procedure), Minister Akpobio has now disappointed with turning in a censored, highly shallow forensic report, if the diversionary points mentioned at the presentation to President Buhari are the key highlights of the report.
The forensic audit, the most expensive in Nigeria, must go beyond telling the people what we already know to exposing the damning ills of the commission, identify culprits and spell sanctions.
Nobody will regard the audit report if it's not wholly made public by government.
At the presentation to President Mohammadu Buhari, the moments Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio and lead forensic auditor, Alhaji Kabir Ahmed, murmured what they may have captured among the key highlights in the sixteen months determined NDDC forensic audit, the first reaction that came to mind was, let's audit this shambolic forensic audit.
And for this singular purpose, auditing the forensic audit report, we insist that the Federal Government (FG) makes public the said audit report in line with the Freedom Of Information (FOI) Act. We may not have seen the full report, but predictably, we sense, from the report presentation, that there may have been no forensic audit in true sense of the word. No commitment to have one from the very beginning.
Akpabio have succeeded in putting words in the mouth of the highly guided auditors, to tell, as we had worried about, a predetermined script of what the minister wants Buhari to hear. Arguably, I had warned that the audit would be irritatingly shallow when deliberately, the Minister and his rapidly overhauled NDDC caretakers, from interim management committee to a Sole Administrator, were busy pre-empting the forensic audit with all kinds of indictments on preferred targets.
Before conclusion of official engagement of lead auditor without any honest selection process, Akpabio and his caretakers had inundated the media with an unnamed consultant who was pocketing perceived free One Billion Naira monthly NDDC money on the guise of collecting statutory funding contributions from International Oil Companies (IOCs) on behalf of the commission.
Before the forensic audit commenced, Akpabio had threatened to expose federal lawmakers highjacking NDDC projects, later displaced Cairo Ojougbo who had fingered a Delta Senator who highjacked hundreds of ghost NDDC contracts, smiling to the bank without executing one. Even Akpabio was accused by Joy Nunieh, as their shortlived romance crashed, of benefiting ghost NDDC contracts.
These flood of indictments resonated so much that the public had been expectant of of a forensic audit that would bomb those who have made occupation out of stealing blindly on the Niger Delta commonwealth that is NDDC.
It's instructive to hear the Minister of Justice who received the report on behalf of Buhari recap the essence of the audit, when he said, " Federal government (FG) is particularly concerned with the colossal loss occasioned by uncompleted and unverified development projects in the Niger Delta Region, in spite of the huge resources made available to uplift the living standard of the citizens.
"Federal government in consequence, apply the law to remedy the deficiencies outlined in the audit report as appropriate, including but not limited to initiation of criminal investigations, prosecution, recovery of funds not properly utilized for the public purposes for which they were meant for review of the laws to reposition and restructure the NDDC for the efficiency of better service delivery amongst others."
But curiously, how well has Akpabio's self determined forensic audit reflected the said "deficiencies" against expectations of Nigerians? Of all the critical issues expected to be addressed, what did Akpabio and his lead consultant highlight on Thursday? That the "forensic audit discovered 13, 700 abandoned NDDC projects across the Niger Delta.
That the report recommended downsizing of an NDDC board and its membership should be part-time to check overhead cost on the part of the NDDC board. That oil companies were owing the commission $4 billion.
The auditors further recommended "review of NDDC Masterplan to make it mandatory for all development projects to be in line with the plan and on needs basis."
Seriously, were this gibberish/unintelligible/meaningless the most critical reasons Akpabio desperately stage managed, perhaps the most expensive forensic audit in Nigeria, if not the entire world, ever.
First all, the forensic audit was not to tell us what we already know. 13,700 abandoned projects, IOCs owing NDDC were not the issues. Who are the contractors and what kind of contracting process allow them to abandon projects with impunity, after collecting money to what tune?
The report recommends downsizing NDDC board and making it part time. I challenge FG to go through the establishment Act. The NDDC board from onset was designed to be part time. It's a demonstration of extreme greed that made successive boards turned their role into an alternative government where the convoys of a single director competes with that of a governor or the President.
Recall that the foundation Managing Director (MD), Godwin Omene, the only known technocrat to have managed the agency, checkmated then Chairman Onyema Ugochukwu to not overstep his bound as part time board member when he was bent on competing with the MD on day to day running of the commission.
So, recommending downsizing is understatement. I make bold to say NDDC board as conceived never needed the 13 storey complex and ancillary buildings as board headquarters where apart from the bloated staff and hangers on called aides to board members, the contingent of private guards, Njgeria police officers and Civil Defence Corps officers, DSS officers, etc watching over the place and securing the board directors alone is more than six Divisional Police Offices put together.
The NDDC board also never needed the previous rental building it was paying over a billionaire naira annual rent on. It was too large, too wasteful. Neither did the commission needed several directorates, several employed directors and staff with redundant offices.
At best, a single or two storey building would have been adequate. After All, by its design, the mandated state offices were supposed to be the main operational bases of the NDDC. The board members were to meet to approve budgets, projects for the states, presented after careful needs assessment by the oil producing communities and other relevant stakeholders in the Niger-Delta region.
It was not the design of NDDC that every contractor must come to the commission's headquarters in Port Harcourt to apply, submit, bid, win, get approval and pursue payments for projects done in the mandated states. The board members, by share greed, made the Commissioners representing the state and entire state offices staff redundant, to such extent that some contractors never interact with the state offices before executing projects and getting payments from Port Harcourt.
The audit report talked about ensuring that all NDDC development projects were in line with the plan. I ask, did any law in the Master Plan permit irrelevant projects in the first place? Was it not as a result of greed that the master plan was trashed and NDDC became ground for quick win emergency projects and palliatives sharing?
In a nutshell, Akpabio's censored forensic audit has not told Niger Deltans and the Federal government of Nigeria what they want to hear. This was undoubtedly, as I have highlighted, the most expensive audit ever. After signing the "huge rewards contracts" for the consultant auditors, twice Akpabio and his Sole Administrator patronised them with fleet of new cars including several patrol vehicles to join security guards at extra cost.
So we want a full audit report. One that spells who abandoned what contract. They told us the forensic audit will name the fraudster who was collecting one billion naira monthly as commission for picking funding from IOCs. They said the audit would name every Senator, House Representatives member or other public office holder who has made billions of naira from running ghost contracts in NDDC. We want these reflected in the audit.
Beyond that, most NDDC contracts were done shabbily. The forensic audit report should expose inflated contracts executed in shabby way not commensurate with the contract sum.
Very important is the issue of internal collaboration. It has been established, proven, that the sleaze/immoral on the commission couldn't have been so profound without the staff of the commission aiding and abetting to share from the loots. The forensic report won't be credible without exposing staff collusion and sanctions spelt.
For recommendations, I state:
NDDC is not an IOC with oil operations to have the extravagant complex it calls headquarters. To agree with the forensic audit recommendation of a part time board which is stating the obvious, I recommend that the headquarters complex be sold or put to better government use.
Closely related to one above, NDDC is over staffed with redundant staffs. The downsizing should affect the bloated staff to a streamlined workforce of efficient hand. Likewise, the hangers on, called aides to the board members are too unnecessary. Only a few personal details would be adequate for part time board members.
The security details for the board and entire commission is fraudulently oversized. If the NDDC was not being abused as a patronage agency sharing money with entitlement mentality, the Chairman and rest of the board don't deserve more than two police officers and a few guards in their homes. FG must stop to maintain a military cantonment or police divisions in NDDC headquarters and the collapsed state offices.
FG must stop abusing or undermining the Act establishing the NDDC board. The Act has no place for interim boards, most inciting of all, sole administrator. It's a display of corruption to introduce this extraneous dimensions into the act. The President must stop personalizing the NDDC as a patronage agency for sharing appointments to partisan loyalists. That's bad. The agency is supposed to be run by technocrats, not political loyalists.
The law designed for an NDDC with stronger mandated State Offices, not a supreme board members dictating contracts from their comfort zones at the NDDC headquarters.
Above all, the concerns I have raised would not be ascertained if the forensic audit is not made public to know to what extent it has met set objectives.
As a matter of public interest, let's audit this forensic audit report.
Zik Gbemre.
September 4, 2021
We Mobilize Others To Fight For Individual Causes As If Those Were Our Causes