The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has announced that it is in discussions with global consultants to establish a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish its corporate governance structure.
According to NDDC Executive Director, Projects, Mr. Charles Ogunmola, the commission’s State offices were previously restricted to inspection, but going forward, every project request must be business-case based.
Ogunmola said:
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“We are currently in talks with PwC, KPMG and Deloitte for one of them to come in and establish our corporate governance structure so that we will be able to operate like any other world-class organization where everything is run with probity and guided with the best in practice rules of governance.
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“This should start the journey of our corporate governance renewal and that is ongoing at the moment. We hope to establish a Memorandum of Understanding within the next 30 to 60 days.”
Ogunmola stated that NDDC officials would now be stationed at the Local Government level and that developmental project requirements from the communities must come from the communities themselves.
The above included the involvement of youths, community leaders, and local pressure groups.
He said:
“So when the decision comes out, it is a collective decision that no one in the communities can deny knowledge of. The local communities must now come up with a needs assessment which must be signed off by the community leaders. And it is the people in the communities that will execute such projects.’’
Earlier, the Director said only NDDC workers monitored projects but going forward, he said the commission would now involve independent organizations to monitor the outcome of projects.
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The firms, he said would be stationed across states to monitor projects.
He said:
‘‘But an organization would not just stay in one location. For instance, if an organization monitors a project in Abia today, the next project monitoring will be in Rivers or Akwa Ibom.
“So by that, it becomes difficult for the independent assessor to establish a relationship with any contractor. And that helps the commission to get an objective view and status about such a project from our internal workers who are the very competent and external umpire.’’
