The Senate Committee on Niger Delta on Wednesday summoned the Accountant-General of the Federation to appear before it over the non-remittances of some Federal Government agencies’ contributions to the Niger Delta Development Commission.
The Chairman of the committee, Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, gave the directive when the managements of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas and Ecological Fund Office appeared before the Senate panel to explain reasons why they were not making their obligations to the NDDC.
Nwaoboshi said the amount due for payment to the NDDC from the NLNG and the EFO which they refused to pay in the last 16 years was colossal. He insisted that they had by their action, disobeyed the nation’s laws.
He said, “The next step the committee would take now is to invite the Accountant-General of the Federation and investigate the matter to know why the two agencies of the government had not been remitting what is due to the NDDC to it.”
The senator explained that the committee was conducting a holistic investigation into the activities of the NDDC, especially on why they were not performing well despite the huge resources at their disposal.
“What we want to do is to find out first, the claims in some quarters that colossal amount had been given to the people of Niger Delta region, through the NDDC. Hence there is nothing on the ground.
“We want to know how much the agency had received so far from year 2000 to date? What are the projects they had executed with the money?
“We want to know those who were contributing to the agency. We have asked the Managing Director of the NLNG, Mr. Babs Omotowa, and he said that they have not been contributing money to the NDDC.
“They showed us a Supreme Court judgement which described the NLNG as a gas processing company and that there is a Gas Act that came before that of NDDC Act. They argued that the NDDC Act has not repealed the Gas Act.”
Nwaoboshi said the NLNG claimed that the Gas Act had given them tax holiday and that they had been carrying out their corporate social responsibilities in their host communities within the Niger Delta region.
He said, “We are lawmakers and we are going to revisit the two Acts. We will go into the root of the matter. We don’t just make laws for the purpose of making it. Laws are meant to be obeyed. If government agencies and institutions refused to obey the law, why do we talk about the rule of law? Laws made by the National Assembly should be obeyed.”
Nwaoboshi said everybody had been complaining that the NDDC was not performing but they did not know that the agency had not been receiving its dues, especially from the oil companies.
He said the oil companies were supposed to pay three per cent of their budget to the NDDC but that they were giving less than that.
He said, “When they came before our committee, I read out the Act to them and some of them started apologising. They said they thought that they were supposed to pay three per cent of the projects that they execute in their communities. There has been total disregard and disrespect for the NDDC Act and nobody will allow that.
The Permanent Secretary, Ecological Fund Office, Mr. Mohammed Abass, told the committee that the NDDC was supposed to receive its funding from the states and local governments’ share of the fund.
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