Abuja – The House of Representatives recently commenced investigative hearing into the ten years Audited account of the Niger Delta Development Commission, but almost suffer set back when the
Acting Managing Director of the agency Prof. Pondei Kemerbrandikumo and the lawmakers engaged one another over disagreement on proceedings
Hon.Oluwole Oke Chairman of the House Committee had hinted that the investigation was sequel to an audit report from the Auditor-General of the Federation in which it was alleged that the NNDC had audited it’s account without addressing its accompanying queries.
Trouble started when the Managing Director then asked the lawmakers to excuse him from the hearing to attend to his failing health through medical check-up as he was feeling uneasy during the investigation which most of the lawmakers weren’t disposed to grant him.
He acknowledged that a letter dated June 9,2020 from the Auditor-General’s office had clearly shown that the committee is in possession of audited accounts of the agency up to 2018 but there were some queries issued with the audit report that were not attended to.
The Osun born lawmaker in his ruling said that the the Acting MD as head of the interim management committee is responsible for any anomaly in the agency the IMC should respond to these queries.
He said, “what the Auditor-General did was to invoke section 4 of the Audit Act to discover the anomalies in the NDDC.
“The main issue is whether the Interim Management Committee has rendered the account up to 2018. We stopped at 2018 due to the coronavirus pandemic, but clearly there are issues here and there”
But the MD told the committee that the agency had rendered its audited accounts up to 2018. He further said that the committee should excuse him to attend to his failing health and nominated the Director of Internal Audit Eno Ubi to stand in for him.
He said, “I want the Chairman to excuse me on health ground. The Director of Internal Audit is here and is capable”.
Most of lawmakers however said that the MD is the chief as accounting officer in the agency should not be excused resulting into almost a brawl before the chairman agreed to excuse him.
Meanwhile the committee has also began inquiry into the disbursement of N70,495,993,761.00 by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management through the Bank of Industry under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme GEEP.
