Auditor General of the Federation, AGF, Samuel Ukura, disclosed yesterday that after collecting N70 billion, some contractors working for the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, disappeared into thin air without any presence at sites. This disclosure was contained in the Auditor General’s query to NDDC for the financial year covering 2008 and 2012. Ukura also alleged that despite notifying the commission of the financial infractions on three separate occasions, NDDC failed to respond to the query. The Auditor General laid this complaint yesterday at a public hearing called by the Senate Public Accounts Committee to look into the said query. The Auditor General told the committee, headed by Senator Andy Uba that the blame for the infraction should be shared between the contractors and the management of NDDC. Uba, in his remark, wondered why NDDC management should not be sanctioned for the financial infractions. He said: “The management of NDDC should explain why the contractors who were mobilised did not show any presence at the site.
“The management should also explain why appropriate sanctions should not be meted on it.” In his response, NDDC Director of Finance and Supplies, Jimoh Adejule, explained that upon receipt of the query, the board engaged the services of a consultant to verify the claims by the Auditor General. He said the report filed by the consultants showed that it was only N11 billion that was at stake. The Auditor General, who stood his ground, wondered why the commission should further expend public funds to engage the services of a consultant when its engineers, who awarded the contracts and were supposed to supervise it, were still within the reach of the commission. Acting Managing Director of NDDC, Mrs. Ibom Seminitari, assured the lawmakers of plans to unravel the perpetrators of the fraud, even though she said the alleged financial infraction took place before she took over. Uba subsequently gave the parties one month to reconcile the differences and report back to the committee.
