The Ondo State Budget Transparency and Accountability Platform has advised residents of Ondo State, southwest Nigeria, to speak up on the level of abandoned projects of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
Speaking at a news briefing in Ondo town, the Coordinator and Leader of the NGO, Jerry Akintomide, said with support from Social Action and MacArthur Foundation, the aim was to increase awareness of citizens on the number of abandoned NDDC projects.
He encouraged on citizens to hold their representatives accountable by asking questions about budget implementation.
‘It is important for them to speak up now because Ondo State is part of NDDC states’, he said.
Another leader of the platform, Alo Martins, noted that the sum of N103.6 million was approved for capital projects in Ondo West and Ondo East local government areas (LGAs) (which were used as a case study) for five different projects across three subsectors in 2019.
Martins listed the subsectors as education, canalisation/reclamation and water supply.
‘Signboards of proposed projects or better still awarded contracts showing the names of the projects, contractor(s), and duration are common sights. Weeds were found to have taken over most of the project sites’, he said.
According to the NGO, the sum of N15 million was approved for rehabilitation and furnishing of a school building at Ondo Boys High School, Ondo West, but findings show that the project is not in existence.
The NGO also said it sighted more projects like the construction of solar powered borehole, proposed to be situated at Moferere market in Ondo West, with an approval of N7.17 million. But the project is nowhere to be found.
It added that the sum of N37.5 million was approved for the canalisation of Okuludu/Odojomu/Odosida River in Ondo West LGA, though the project was started, but not yet completed as the dredging stopped halfway.
The group is openly calling for action and information from NDDC after the Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were submitted to the NDDC headquarters and Ondo State offices and were not responded to after the stipulated period.
In 2021, Nigeria’s Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, revealed that the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) had over 13,000 poorly executed and unverified projects despite the six trillion naira allocation it received from 2001 to 2019.
Photo source: Jifola52
