… Dickson protests appointment of Sole Administrator
The Senate on Monday passed the sum of N453, 200,000,000.00 as the budget of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) for the 2020 fiscal year.
This followed the presentation of the report of the Senate Committee on Niger Delta Affairs by the Vice Chairman of the Committee, Senator Amos Kilawangs Bulus (Gombe South) at plenary.
The Committee in its recommendation noted that the revenue profile of the Commission for year 2020 comprised of revenue brought forward of N12billion, federal government contribution of N63,506,151,945.00, oil companies contributions of and Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG) and Others in the sum of NN317,493,848,055.00, Ecological fund of N60billion and other internally realized income of N200million.
Bulus added that after due consideration, the Committee recommended that the expenditure profile of the NDDC for year 2020 should include a personnel cost of N27.389billion, Overhead expenditure of N13,937,244,107.00, internal capital expenditure of N2,793,755,893.00 and development projects at the cost of N409.080billion.
The Committee further recommended that the 2020 budget of the NDDC would elapse on 31st March, 2021.
All the recommendations of the Committee were approved by the Senate after due consideration.
Meanwhile, the Senator representing Bayelsa West and former Governor of the State, Henry Seriake Dickson Monday protested the appointment of a Sole Administrator for the NDDC by the Federal Government.
Dickson spoke on the floor of the Senate while seconding the passage of the NDDC budget for 2020.
He insisted that the appointment of a sole administrator for the intervention agency was an illegality.
He called on the Senate to put a caveat on the Budget that only the agency under its present leadership can only spend the recurrent expenditure of the budget while the capital component would be administered by a substantive board to be appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Dickson said: “Unfortunately, Mr. President, whereas it is true that an audit can go pari-pasu with a board, as a matter of fact, if you want to carry out a proper audit you set up the board according to the Act for them to do what they need to do.
“That is what is happening in every other corporation or institution. But in the case of NDDC, things are left the way they are.
“As it is now, all the governance structure and mechanisms put in place by the Act are non-existent. They don’t have a governing board made up of the governors and officials at the Federal level, you don’t have the board sitting on it and now they brought in the IMC and the IMC has gone.
“But in its place what do we have? You have another illegality replacing the earlier illegality for which the Senate and the National Assembly courageously and patriotically took the position that you have taken.
“So, while we are now presented with this situation, today the Senate is considering a budget to be implemented not by the IMC which at least has three people, this budget we are now considering, if passed, is to be implemented by another unknown entity called a Sole Administrator.
“So instead of allowing the IMC that has at least three people or more, you now have an illegal entity known as a Sole Administrator to manage this budget.
“So I want to thank the Senate President and distinguished senators as well as the National Assembly for taking the principled and patriotic position that you have had to take this year.
“Having said that we are now at a stage where we have to pass a Bill at least for the sake of the people. But I want to make some suggestions.
“Number one, there is no indication as to the duration within which this sole administrator, unknown to the NDDC law, will act.
“Number two and flowing from number one, there is no indication as to how soon Mr President will exercise his powers under the NDDC Act in making the recommendation because he has the powers to appoint.
“There is no indication also whether this budget that we are now being told to pass is the one that will be implemented by this Sole Administrator unknown to the laws of this country, unknown to the NDDC and unknown to the Senate.
“Whereas we need now at this stage, in the interest of the people of the Niger Delta, to consider and pass this budget, we need to add a caveat that this budget when passed should not be implemented beyond the recurrent normal running expenses until the NDDC Act is complied with.
“So that you don’t have a situation where we pass this budget and then one Sole Administrator unknown to the law and the Senate, someone whose capacity you cannot assess will be there to implement it.
In his remarks, Senate President Ahmad Lawan said stopping the implementation of the capital component of the budget would negatively impact the people of the area.
Lawan called on the Senate Committee on Niger Delta to sit up and ensure that the funds were properly utilised.
“The committee had done a good job in the past and it should continue with that,” he said.
He disclosed that the National Assembly has been engaging with the Executive for the nomination to be made for the Governing Board of the commission.
Lawan said: “We will continue to put in a lot of effort to ensure that within the shortest time we get the nomination so that the NDDC Act will be properly and fully complied with.
“The nominations will go a long way in waking up everyone who thinks that sole administrator should be there for a long time.
“Between now and when the sole administrator we will go, the funds appropriated will be utilised.
“The budget 2021 for NDDC should be presented to us as quickly as possible because we want to streamline the implementation of all the budgets whether it is for the MDAs or agencies like the NDDC, with the main budget of the country.
“Starting from January 2021, budget implementation for that should start.”
