Akpabio’s Contract Beneficiaries List Genuine- NDDC

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Obiajulu Joel Nwolu

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The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has given credence to the list of contract beneficiaries made public by the Minister of Niger Delta affairs, Godswill Akpabio.

The minister had released a list containing names of prominent federal legislators and former governors as beneficiaries of contracts awarded by the NDDDC.

Among the lawmakers listed as beneficiaries were:  Chairman of senate committee on NDDC, Peter Nwaoboshi; Matthew Urhoghide, chairman of the senate committee on public accounts; and Orji Uzor Kalu, senate whip.

Akpabio also listed James Ibori and Emmanuel Uduaghan, former governors of Delta state as beneficiaries.

All the individuals named have rebuffed the claim, accusing the minister of attempting to divert attention from the NDDC probe and tarnishing their reputation.

Affirming the list, Charles Odili, director of corporate affairs in the NDDC in a statement on Tuesday said the list emanated from 8,000 documents handed over to forensic auditors.

“The Interim Management Committee of the commission stands by the list which came from files already in the possession of the forensic auditors,” he said.

“It is not an Akpabio list but the NDDC’s list; the list is part of the volume of 8,000 documents already handed over to the forensic auditors.

“Prominent indigenes of the Niger Delta whose names were on the list should not panic as the commission knew that people used the names of prominent persons in the region to secure contracts, and the ongoing forensic audit would unearth those behind the contracts.

“[The] intention of the list was to expose committee chairmen in the national assembly who used fronts to collect contracts from the commission, some of which were never executed.”

President Muhammadu Buhari had in October ordered a forensic audit into the accounts of NDDC from 2001 to 2019.

Source: Cable