Some directors and top staff of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) are being interrogated by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) over allegations of diversion of funds, procurement fraud and misappropriation of the agency’s COVID-19 funds.
According to ICPC Spokesperson, Azuka Ogugua, the officials were recently interrogated at the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja, after months of intelligence gathering, following the receipt of petitions from Nigerians on the alleged illegalities and contracts fraud by some officials of the agency.
Furthermore, Ogugua revealed that staff of the agency are being investigated for their complicity in an alleged diversion of N5.474 billion meant for the purchase of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for health workers handling the Covid-19 pandemic in the nine states of NDDC.
“The Commission is also investigating the payments of millions of naira to staff of the agency for foreign trainings during the Covid-19 full lockdown which were never attended, as well as the non-payment of entitlements to students on foreign scholarships”
“Other allegations being investigated by ICPC include the selling of back-dated contract award letters for projects and awards of contracts that were not captured in the budget of the NDDC”
“ICPC had already retrieved relevant documents with which to continue investigations towards the recovery of diverted funds and prosecution of breaches of the law,” she said.
