The Senate on Wednesday began probe into the alleged non remittance of statutory contributions to the Niger Delta Development Commission by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited and the Ecological Fund Office.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee probing the issue, Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, while briefing newsmen disclosed that the amount due for payment to the NDDC by the NLNG and the Ecological Fund Office, which they allegedly refused to pay for over 16 years, is colossal.
Nwaoboshi described the development as flagrant abuse of the law setting up the NDDC.
In his words: “It is not whether that they contributed certain percentage.
“The point is that they had refused to obey the law since year 2000.
“The next step the committee would take now is to invite the Accountant General of the Federation and investigate the matter to know why the two agencies of government had not been remitting what is due to the NDDC to it.
“We are conducting holistic investigation into the activities of the NDDC.
“What we want to do is to find out first the claims in some quarters that colossal amount had been given to the people of Niger Delta region through the NDDC, while there is nothing on the ground.
“We want to know how much the agency had received so far from year 2000 to date, what are the projects they have executed with the money.
“We want to know those who are contributing to the agency.
“We have asked the Managing Director of the NLNG, Mr. Babs Omotowa, and he said that they have not been contributing money to the NDDC.
“They showed us a Supreme Court judgement which described NLNG as a gas processing company and that there is a Gas Act that came before that of NDDC Act.
“They argued that the NDDC Act has not repealed the Gas Act.
“The NLNG claimed that the Gas Act has given them tax holiday.
“We are lawmakers and we are going to revisit the two Acts.
“We will go into the root of the matter.
“We don’t just make laws for the purpose of making it.
“Laws are meant to be obeyed.
“If government agencies and institutions refuse to obey the law, why do we talk about the rule of law?
“Laws made by the National Assembly should be obeyed.
“Everybody is complaining that the NDDC is not performing, but are they receiving the due funding especially from the oil companies?
“The oil companies are supposed to pay three per cent of their budget to NDDC, but they are giving less than that.
“When they came before our committee, I read out the Act to them and some of them started apologising.
“They said they thought that they were supposed to pay three per cent of the projects that they execute in their communities.
“There has been total disregard and respect for the NDDC Act and nobody will allow that.”
However, the Permanent Secretary of the Ecological Fund Office, Mohammed Abass, said his office has made contributions but not to the NDDC.
Abass noted that the Ecological Fund Office spends only the money approved for it by the President for design and drawing.
He added that the NDDC has never approached the Ecological Fund Office to ask for statutory funding.
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