CSO commends Akwa for returning NDDC to core values

By Dennis Udoma, Uyo

A Civil Society Organization (CSO), the Network Advancement Programme for Disaster Risk Reduction (NAPDRR), on Monday commended the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) for its commitment to addressing environmental safety and good governance in the Niger Delta.

The group in a statement jointly signed by its President, Al – Mustapha Edoho and the Programme Monitoring Director, Jibril Edukere praised the acting Managing Director, Mr. Effiong Akwa saying, for returning NDDC to address the challenges of the region, the helmsman has done a tremendous work.

“Since the current management team came on board, it has not been business as usual for contractors in the region”.

They stated that, “several contractors who got various jobs have returned to sites and so many abandoned projects have been completed.

“Some of the contractors are very busy day and night in their project sites and this has helped to reduce poverty because several jobs are now available for the restive youths to engage themselves.

“Never in the history of the NDDC has the region ever witnessed the magnitude of work in progress by contractors and steady payment of backlog of contractual obligations to workers on sites.

“Therefore, as a poverty and disaster risks consultant in the Niger Delta, we commend the interim administrator for these feats and appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari, to sustain the tempo of development of the region by reappointing Akwa, in another capacity when the new board is constituted.

He noted that the resurgence of the tempo of works across the region was borne out of the ongoing forensic probe and auditing of contracts awarded to several firms since the creation of NDDC in 2000, adding that “such political will has helped in returning the interventionist agency back to its core mandate”.

“If you move across the region now, you will see earth-moving equipments, pay loaders and other heavy-duty machines trying to meet up with the end of July deadline to end the forensic probe for the new NDDC board to be in place.

“The local residents who bear the brunt of years of environmental degradation for years of oil exploration and exploitation from our findings are very happy that most of the abandoned roads and other infrastructures are being fixed”, Edoho noted.

He, therefore, advised the youths of the region to reciprocate the Federal Government’s gesture by toeing the line of peace and safeguard critical infrastructures in the state and the region.