Minister of Niger Delta Development, Abubakar Momoh, has unveiled his agenda for the region, vowing revolutionize quality and standard of infrastructure for the people.
Momoh, who stated this in Abuja during his inaugural briefing, tagged:
Special Development Agenda For The Niger Delta, insisted that construction of standard infrastructure would be his watchword.
The minister, who described the prevalence of abandoned and poorly executed projects across the region as unacceptable, especially contracts handle under the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), promised to revisit the forensic audit report of contracts awarded by the commission.
He warned that contractors, who handled various NDDC projects in the region, which were either abandoned or poorly executed, would have questions to answer.
The minister: When I said we want to construct standard projects, the implication is that we also have agencies in the Niger Delta, like the NDDC, charged with the responsibility of executing projects. I said that under my watch, we will make sure the projects they will execute will be of quality and standard.
As to projects, which we are going to execute between now and the next two years, I have not been properly briefed; but you can see I am here now. They
(ministry’s top management staff) are here and are going to brief me on what they have done so far.
Somebody has equally mentioned that about 13,000 projects are abandoned across the region.,
As I am talking now, I don’t know the projects after I have taken a proper study of what is on ground, then I will come up with that statement.
There is a forensic audit, which has been conducted by the Federal Government. We will look at it and identify those that are functional, as well as those that are ongoing some contractors have abandoned their projects; there are some people who collected money and didn’t do anything.
So, we will take a look at all those things to know how to address them in due course Momoh warned that poorly executed projects would no longer be allowed in the region. He however, reassured that thousands uncompleted and abandoned projects across the region will be giving prompt attention and timely completion..
GODWIN GREEN
Niger Delta Correspondent
PRTIMES AFRICA
