By Martin Paul, Abuja

The Federal Government has pledged its readiness to bankroll the forensic audit of 12, 000 Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) projects.

The Interim Management Committee (IMC) of NDDC, recently set up by President Muhammadu Buhari, disclosed that arrangement had been concluded to ensure a hitch-free exercise.

“We are grateful to Mr.

“We note that the President graciously approved this peculiar funding arrangement because he gave due consideration to the fact that the National Assembly has not passed the NDDC 2020 budget.

 “With the funding challenge now settled, we are on course to accelerate the tempo of the forensic audit, which will cover the headquarters and the projects in the 9 NDDC mandate states, to ensure that the exercise is completed on time.

“We also thank Mr. President and the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, for the timely appointment of Mr. Effiong Akwa, as the new NDDC Acting Executive Director, Finance and Administration, EDFA.

“The sudden death of the former EDFA, Chief Ibanga Etang, had affected the processing of the payments for the NDDC Overseas Postgraduate scholarship programme.

“Payment of the fees and stipends of the students have now commenced, as all formalities with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, have been regularised”.

Director, Corporate Affairs of NDDC, Charles Odili, said in a statement eight forensic field auditors had been engaged  to audit the commission from 2001 to 2019.

The President, according to him,  approved the funding following considerations that the National Assembly had not passed the NDDC 2020 Budget.

The statement further said the payment of the fees and stipends of the NDDC scholarship students a road had commenced as all formalities with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had been regularised.

The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, had disclosed that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) at its virtual meeting in Abuja, approved the auditing of 12, 000 projects executed by the commission.

He said a memorandum by the ministry for the appointment of eight firms to carry out forensic audit of the projects was also approved by the council.

Akpabio said a foreign auditing firm, Ernst and Young, which was   appointed in March as lead auditor was among the eight firms.

The international firm would be in charge of programmes and activities at the headquarters in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, while seven other auditing firms will carry out the field work and would be paid N722.3 million for the seven   to 14 days field work.

Akpabio explained that with the approval by FEC, “evaluation of the abandoned projects of NDDC in the last 19 years, estimated almost 12,000 has commenced..

”At the end, we will know the amount of monies that have gone into the region in the last 19 years and whether the value we have received, so far, are commensurate with the monies that have entered into NDDC”, he added.

Akpabio also explained that the money being used for the contracts, which ought to have been drawn from the NDDC budget, came from the Presidency. He attributed  the development  to  the delay in passing the commission’s 2020 budget by the National Assembly.

 “The first amount that was approved for the lead forensic auditors was about N318 million and then for this batch of eight field auditors, N722.3 million. We expect to complete the field audit in the next one or two weeks.

”Mr. President had last year approved an estimated amount of N2.5 billion. So, everything that we are spending now will come from that estimated sum. Initially, it should have come from the budget of the NDDC, but because of the delay and the inability to pass the 2020 budget, the entirety of the amount that will be spent will come from the budget of the Presidency.

“The job is not just forensic audit alone; you know forensic audit is different from statutory. This one (forensic audit)  is done with a view to address the issues of misappropriation, bribery, corruption, fraud or anything of that sort that could have militated against the success of the agency in the last 19 years”, he said.