South South PDP urges FG to constitute board, stop allocations to NDDC

The South-South National Vice Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Dan Orbih, Sunday, called on the federal government to immediately stop allocations to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC)’s Interim Management Committee following multiple litigations and corruption charges rocking the commission.

Orbih made the call in Benin City during a thanksgiving service and reception to celebrate his emergence as the PDP south-south national vice chairman at the party’s zonal congress in Port-Harcourt, Rivers state recently.

He said the massive fraud in the commission has denied Edo state and other states in the region of the necessary development because of the delay in constituting a legally approved board for the NDDC.

He said: “We are in a situation where the federal government has refused for obvious reasons, to constitute the board of NDDC.

“NDDC today is an institution of fraud and scandals to the detriment of the people of the Niger Delta region.

“Government must rise up to the challenge of putting together a board where all the states in the South-South will be well represented so that the board can do exactly what they are mandated to do for the development of the South-South region.

“We are sick and tired of the scandals in NDDC. It is time for us to rise up and demand from the federal government to put together a board that will serve the interest of the South-South. Until that is done, we stand to demand that all allocations to the NDDC should be suspended until the government is able to put them together aboard.

“For so long, we are hearing stories of how money that is meant for the development of the South-South is being wasted by Interim boards. There is nothing in the Act of NDDC that provides for these contraptions by the federal government.

“On behalf of the South-South, we call on the federal government to put to stop the allocations going to the Interim board because there is no board legally in place to serve the interest of our people,” Orbih said.