The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) ‘s budget defence on Tuesday went rowdy due to the inability of the Acting Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Prof. Kemebradikumo Daniel Pondei to account for over N183 billion.
The Joint session of the Upper and Lower Chamber of the National Assembly weren’t satisfied with the budget performance of the NDDC having discovered some discrepancies in the figures.
Chairman of the House Committee on NDDC, Hon. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo became critical, saying: “What you have here (expenditure) is N122 billion from what you said from the actual money you received.
” You received N305,570,683,529.87. It means that your available balance that you have there are always a debit and a credit.
“If you received N305 billion and you spent N122 billion, what you are telling us now is that the available fund, available to the commission as we speak now will be N183,315,748,214.58.
“Would that be a available to be brought forward?”
Reacting the NDDC Managing Director referred to the appendix page which reflects 346 billion saying that the first quarter of 2019 would actual show the revenue.
“I refer you to appendix 1. There is a table in appendix 1. If you look at column 2 it talks about funds approved in the budget which sums up to N346 billion, then you look at the first quarter in 2019 which shows you the actual revenue received in that period and expenditure.”
Hon. Tunji-Ojo insisted that Prof. Pondei should come out clear if the sum of N305 billion was generated by the NDDC.
The proceeding dramatically became rancourous as some members of the Committee insisted that the consideration should go ahead despite Pondei’s inability to reconcile figures.
The presiding Chairman, Peter Nwaoboshi pleaded with the members to allow the NDDC management to prepare for the Defence.
