The minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, has faulted the ongoing probe of the Niger Delta Development Commission by the National Assembly.
Akpabio said the National Assembly ought to have expanded the scope of the probe to cover the over 19 years existence of the commission rather than focusing only on five months, The Guardian reports.
PressExpress Nigeria gathers that the minister said this when members of the Independent Marketers Association of Nigeria visited him in Abuja.
Akpabio says NDDC is an ATM where people withdraw money to contest elections
Affirming that the commission is deeply enmeshed in corrupt practices, he described the NCDC as an Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) where people make withdrawals to contest elections.
“As a governor I knew that there is something wrong with the NDDC but I didn’t really know what it was till I was appointed minister that was when I discovered that the NDDC was like a cesspool for corruption, it is like an ATM for people to come and collect money to contest next election,” Akpabio was quoted to have said.
According to Akpabio, the NDDC has received over N5 trillion in the last 19 years, with no physical project on ground to justify the huge funds.
He, however, gave the assurance that the outcome of the ongoing forensic audit would expose the magnitude of rot in the commission.
Recall that Akpabio had earlier said that most contracts from the NDDC were awarded to National Assembly members.
N10 billion fraud allegation: IGP orders probe of Udom’s appointee.
The minister made the comment as he was being grilled by members of the House of Representatives committee on NDDC in a public hearing.
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