Chairman of Niger Delta Projects Consortium, Prof. Jasper Jumbo, who wrote the blueprint for the establishment of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and its fore-runner OMPADEC has lamented the poor state of affairs at the agency.
In a 23-page presentation to the House of Representatives Adhoc Committee on abandoned projects on September 25, he traced the origin of the interventionist agencies and the sacrifices the founding fathers of the Niger Delta made to establish the Commission in order to improve the lot of the Niger Delta inhabitants.
He regretted that the main aims and objectives of the Commission to attract massive infrastructural development projects to the area and provide employment to the teeming youths had been abandoned, as contracts are being awarded to influence peddlers and political contractors, instead of genuine businessmen and indigenes of the constituent states of the Commission.
He disclosed that the provision in the NDDC Act which provides for location of infrastructure in the constituent states, in accordance with their oil production statistics had been neglected and frowned at the practice where contracts of the Commission are being hawked and sold openly by agents of the Commission staff.
He said founding fathers of the Commission had been holding the restive youths of the area from returning to militancy, as they are being frustrated by the massive corruption and inadequacies of the management of the Commission.