The Senate yesterday passed an N89 billion budget for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) for the 2008 fiscal year with a stipulation that the commission renders monthly account of its funds to the National Assembly.

The N89 billion budget was N10 billion more than the N79 billion budgetary proposals for the commission proposed by President Umaru Yar‘Adua last month. The increase flowed from the discovery of an underpayment of N10 billion from the contributions by the oil companies.

N80.356 billion of the total budget is to be expended on the projects of the commission while N4.4 billion would be spent on overhead and recurrent expenditure, N3.3 billion will go to personnel cost and N1.119 billion to capital.

The report of the Senate Constitution on Niger Delta on the budget proposals was presented by Senator James Manager, chairman of the Senate Committee on Niger Delta. The report was adopted without amendment.

Briefing newsmen at the end of the Senate session yesterday, Senator Manager said the Senate would rigidly police the utilisation of the NDDC funds. Buttressing the Senate supervision is Clause 5 of the bill passed yesterday which requires the commission to make monthly reports of its funds to the National Assembly.
The clause reads:

“The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Niger Delta Development Commission and the Director of Treasury, Niger Delta Development Commission shall immediately upon the coming into force of this Act furnish the National Assembly, on a monthly basis, the status of the records of the Niger Delta Development Commission Statutory Accounts.”

Explaining the budget yesterday, Senator Manager while regretting that it was presented to the National Assembly nearly 10 months behind schedule said the increased allocation flowed from the discovery of an underpayment of about N10 billion by the oil companies. Oil companies under the NDDC Act are expected to contribute 3 per cent of their annual budgets to the NDDC fund.

“We had discussions with stakeholders, NDDC, Accountant-General, oil companies and at the end of the day, we discovered that the N79.6 billion was short of about N10 billion from the oil companies.

“We talked to the stakeholders and we all agreed that the figures were grossly misrepresented and that is the reason why we have this N 10 billion increment,” Senator Manager explained.

Affirming the determination of the Senate to monitor the implementation of the budget, he charged the executive arm to ensure rapid implementation of the budget within the time left in the year,” he said.

Noting the region’s quest for development, he said: “The budget that we just passed as you can see, 90 percent of it is for capital infrastructural development.

 This is a region that is yearning for rapid infrastructural development. Therefore, whatever we have done we are very comfortable, that about 10 per cent is meant for recurrent and overhead. This is because it is a region that has done a lot for this country. A region that has produced a lot for this country.”

Source: Vanguard