Civil society organisations under the platform of the OPEN Government Partnership (OGP) have set up a committee across the 17 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Abia State to monitor and document “failed” Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) projects in the state.
The committee emerged during a meeting conveyed recently by the Co-Chair CSOs/ Non-State Actors of Abia State Open Government Partnership, Comrade Nelson Nnanna Nwafor, who is also the Executive Director of the Foundation for Environmental Rights, Advocacy & Development (FENRAD) in Umuahia, Abia State.
In his opening remarks, Nwafor lamented the poor state of infrastructural facilities in the state over the years and wondered why some indigenous NDDC contractors who were saddled with the responsibility of handling the works now described as abandoned projects could do such disservice to their home state, Abia.
He praised the political will shown by the Governor Okezie Victor Ikpeazu led administration working in conjunction with the current executives of NDDC in unraveling “this very act of economic sabotage”.
He commended NDDC for its audit of the failed projects and for making it public for scrutiny and decried that, in the report released, Abia State has 628 projects captured “which goes further to justify the huge infrastructure deficit in the state as reported earlier”.
He stressed that the most worrisome fact of the investigation is that most of the failed or abandoned projects were award to indigenous contractors who hailed from Abia State.
Comrade Nwafor urged members of the Open Government Partnership to revisit the documents released by NDDC on the failed projects to identify the projects closer to their localities/communities and conduct an assessment which will be harmonised and used to engage both the Committee on the failed NDDC Projects and bodies at the state and national levels.
He expressed confidence that the step taken by the CSOs would unearth the fraud in the NDDC project which has undermined developments in the Niger Delta Region and promised to support the CSOs through engagement of development partners.
In her Speech. Priscilla Ogbonna, the Executive Director of Initiative for Care and Support to the Less Privileged (ICASULP), disclosed that in one of the projects which is the remedial work on sections of 5km World Bank Housing Internal Roads in Umuahia township awarded to a contractor A.T Services Ltd on November 29, 2016 to the tune of N706,457,180:63 was relatively okay but frowned at the adjoining roads to the main works.
She expressed the hope that in the bid to conduct an independent monitoring of the failed projects, it is key to state and table down specific terms of reference for CSOs to monitor and document the failed projects.
