Tony John, Port Harcourt
Acting Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Professor Nelson Brambaifa, has said that the agency under his leadership is open to public scrutiny.
Also, Brambaifa said the present management has since it took over office on January 25, 2019, stimulated the region’s economy by paying off debt accruals of N20 million and below, which predated the management team. The acting Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the commission, who spoke through his media aide, Nancy Ijaopo, in a statement issued yesterday, Port Harcourt, faulted the insinuation dragging the former Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi, to the running of the NDDC.
He stressed: “For the umpteenth time, the office of the acting MD/CEO of the NDDC wishes to strongly condemn an online attention-seeking, uncouth and unprofessional publication contracted to do a hatchet job for political actors, who are on a mission to fight a proxy war.
“We wish to clarify that the records of the Commission as well as the activities of the acting MD are very open for public scrutiny. It is routine for anti-graft agencies to ask questions and even probe the activities of public agencies in the greater interest of the public.
“What we find detestable is the attempt to force the office of the acting MD into a needless media debate on the operations of any anti-graft agency.
“No one is in doubt as to the competence and patriotic ability of the anti-graft agencies to do what is right, even as we also know that this task does not include media trials.
“The desperation of these individuals within and outside the Commission has come to a crescendo by trying fruitlessly to drag the name of the former Transportation Minister, Chibuike Amaechi, to the running of the NDDC”, Brambaifa stated. Professor Brambaifa stressed that the commission under his watch, has not looted any fund meant for the agency, adding that the new leadership is not teleguided by anyone as alleged.
“Let it be on record that Prof. Nelson Brambaifa is an established academic with several years of administrative competence garnered from within and outside the ivory tower. Therefore , it is most bizarre for any group or individual to allege that the Commission is being teleguided by any one man.
“The task of delivering on the core mandate as an interventionist agency remains paramount on the agenda of the present management team and no amount of sponsored distractions can derail this solemn promise. Also instructive is the fact that over N2 billion has been spent by the Prof Brambaifa-led management to clear arrears of tuition and upkeep fees owed scholars since 2018.
“Again, there can never be a more wicked lie than saying that a whopping N100 billion and another N750 billion belonging to the commission have been looted. The truth is that the commission’s full two years budget is less than the figure cheaply bandied and, therefore, such an amount cannot be expended or in the imagination of the naysayers, looted in three months”, Brambaifa expressed.