N5.4billion NDDC Fraud: Senior Staff Arrested

Over alleged culpability in a N5.474 NDDC Fraud, some senior management staff of the Commission have been arrested by the ICPC.

TheConscience reports that at least two directors of the Niger Delta Development Commission were detained by officials of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) over their culpability in multiple contract scams and fraud related to Covid-19 funds.

Recall that the Niger Delta Development Commission has been in the news lately over corrupt practices and contract scandals leading to a messy show at the National Assembly where the Minister for Niger Delta, Godwill Akpabio accused the federal lawmakers of cornering juicy contracts of the Commission for themselves leading to serious face-offs between the two parties.

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ICPC in a statement signed by it’s Spokesperson, Azuka Ogugua, said some directors of NDDC were interrogated at the Commission’s headquarters recently, after months of intelligence gathering, following the receipt of petitions from Nigerians on the alleged illegalities and contracts fraud by some officials of the agency.

Ogugua further disclosed that top officials of the agency are being investigated for their complicity in an alleged diversion of N5.474 billion meant for the purchase of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for health workers handling the Covid-19 pandemic in the nine states of NDDC.

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She noted: “The Commission is also investigating the payments of millions of naira to staff of the agency for foreign trainings during the Covid-19 full lockdown which were never attended, as well as the non-payment of entitlements to students on foreign scholarships.”

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Reacting to various allegations over the NDDC fraud, Kemebradikumo Pondei, the NDDC acting Managing Director and leader of the interim management committee had admitted recently that the commission spent N1.5 billion for its staff as ‘COVID-19 relief funds’.

The President Mohammed Buhari led Federal Government in council had pledged to directly fund independent forensic auditing of the agency to ascertain the underhand dealings and unravel the actual perpetrators of the NDDC fraud which has crippled its activities and debar it from living up to its full mandate.