Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Prof. Kemebradikumo Pondei says the commission distributed sophisticated medical equipment as part of its contributions to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking during an audience with the leadership of the Niger Delta Youth Council at the Golden Tulip Hotel, Port Harcourt, Prof Pondei explained that the intervention of the NDDC in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, came in three parts; namely: supply of medical equipment, provision of palliatives and public enlightenment.
He stated: “Before the COVID-19 lockdown, we had applied for approval through the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, for COVID-19 intervention. The major part of it was medical equipment, then the second part was palliatives (food items) the third part involved publicity.
“Approval was given by the Federal Executive Council, and the approval letter asked us to inform the Federal Bureau of Public Procurement, since it was an emergency. It clearly stated in the letter to expeditiously do that at the end of all this. We have distributed the medical equipment to all the nine states in the Niger Delta region.
“The medical equipment included ventilators, mobile x-ray machines and PCR machines which are the only things that have not been distributed due to the fact that we are trying to work with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC to increase the testing capacity in the Niger Delta region.”
The NDDC boss said the commission was supposed to calibrate and deploy the 54 PCR machines and mobile x-rays, which he said were not available in many hospitals in the region.
Pondei stated that the frequent changes of management was effecting the performance of the NDDC, noting that on account of the changes, payment to contractors were often delayed even when they have achieved agreed milestones.
“Frequent change of management cannot bring the kind of development we are looking for in the Niger Delta,” he said.
He stated that the Interim Management Committee, IMC, had not awarded any other contracts apart from the ones with presidential approval, explaining that “what we met was historical debts. The first payments we made for contracts were the ones the National Assembly asked us to pay. And most of these debts were historic debts. We have not done any illegal payments. We have paid people who were owed.”
He conceded that the National Assembly had the constitutional right to investigate the operations of the NDDC. He, however, appealed to the lawmakers to also extend their oversight function to helping the NDDC to get the oil companies to meet their statutory obligations to the Commission.
Addressing the issue of payments for the NDDC Permanent headquarters, Prof Pondei noted that the building was started by the Oil Minerals Producing Areas Development Commission, OMPADEC, and in 2010 the board of the NDDC decided to terminate the contract. To make this possible, N500 million was approved by the Federal Executive Council to buy off the previous contractor.
