{"id":7244,"date":"2019-11-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/house-to-investigate-nddc-for-failing-to-submit-2019-budget-estimates-to-national-assembly-2\/"},"modified":"2019-11-20T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T00:00:00","slug":"house-to-investigate-nddc-for-failing-to-submit-2019-budget-estimates-to-national-assembly-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/house-to-investigate-nddc-for-failing-to-submit-2019-budget-estimates-to-national-assembly-2\/","title":{"rendered":"House To Investigate NDDC For Failing To Submit 2019 Budget Estimates To National Assembly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The House of Representatives at its\nplenary session of Tuesday 19th<\/sup> November, 2019 resolved to invite\nthe Honourable Minister of Niger-Delta and the Niger-Delta Development\nCommission (NDDC) Board to explain why the Commission has been spending monies\nthat were not appropriated and approved by the National Assembly in violation\nof the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and the Niger-Delta Development\nCommission Act No.9 of 2000 (as amended). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presenting the motion, Hon. Benjamin\nOkezie Kalu (APC: Abia) gave a synopsis of the Commission, which is established\nby the Niger Delta Development Commission (Establishment) Act No. 6 of 2000\nwith a clear mandate of developing the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria.\nHon. Kalu noted that the NDDC was charged with the responsibility of conceiving\nand formulating policies, guidelines and a comprehensive Master Plan for the\nregion covering key sectors such as agriculture, health, environment, energy,\ntelecommunications and transport (infrastructure) among others. He mentioned\nthat its mandate envisaged substantial expenditures including the award of huge\ncontracts provided they were authorised by the National Assembly in line with\nsection 80(3) and (4) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Section 80(3) and (4) of the 1999\nConstitution (as amended) is reproduced below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c(3)\nNo moneys shall be withdrawn from any public fund of the Federation, other than\nthe Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation, unless the issue of those\nmoneys has been authorised by an Act of the National Assembly.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(4)\nNo moneys shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund or any other\npublic fund of the Federation, except in the manner prescribed by the National\nAssembly<\/em><\/strong>.\u201d\nWhich makes it makes is explicitly mandatory for the National Assembly to\nauthorise any and all manner of expenditures from all public funds of the\nFederation, including the funds of the NDDC\u201d.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also spoke on other laws complementing\nthe constitutional requirement for approval such as section 18(1) of the\nNiger-Delta Development Commission (Establishment) Act No. 6 of 2000 (as amended),\nwhich mandates the Board to submit an\nestimate of the expenditure and income of the Commission for the next\nsucceeding year for the National Assembly\u2019s approval. He further\nexplained that the provisions of Section 82 of the Constitution only empower\nthe President to authorise the withdrawal of monies from the Consolidated\nRevenue Fund in the absence of an Appropriation Act for six months on the\ncondition that the amount withdrawn does not exceed the amount that was authorised\nby the National Assembly for the corresponding period in question in the\nprevious year. He thus argued that this was applicable to the NDDC which was\nyet to submit an estimate of its expenditure and income for the  2019 \nfiscal year more than 13 months after the time frame required by law. In\naddition, the lawmaker was at a loss on the Commission\u2019s gross non-compliance\nsince its budget estimates should have been presented to the House before\nSeptember 30, 2018.  Other concerns expressed\nincluded that the Commission had been operating, making expenses and awarding contracts\nto the tune of N10 billion without despite obtaining approval from the National\nAssembly as required by the Constitution and its enabling Act. He also\nexpressed worry on the implications of the Commission violating Section 82 of\nthe Constitution and incurring expenses far beyond the six months period\nauthorised in the Constitution and spending beyond half the amount approved by\nthe National Assembly in its 2018 budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawmaker further recalled that the\nHouse Ad-hoc Committee on the NDDC set up to investigate its Abandoned Projects\nsince 1999 had uncovered a total of 250 contracts awarded to \u201cphony\u201d companies\nin May, 2019 without appropriation or due process followed as required by the\nBureau of Public Procurement (BPP). He also mentioned that the NDDC had\ndisregarded requests regarding its 2019 budget estimates despite several\ninvitations by its Committees in the Senate and House of Representatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conclusion, he stated that the failure\nand refusal of NDDC to submit its budget estimates for 2019 has created an\n\u201copaqueness\u201d in the operations of the Commission that had encouraged\ncorruption, mismanagement and embezzlement of funds meant for the development\nof the Niger-Delta region and the entire nation at large.  He also blamed the delay in the presentation\nand passage of the NDDC budget as providing a platform for arbitrariness by its\nManagement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following this, the House has also mandated\nits Committee on the Niger-Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to conduct a\ncomprehensive investigation into the financial activities of the Commission.\nThe Committee is expected to report its findings in four weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The House of Representatives at its plenary session of Tuesday 19th November, 2019 resolved to invite the Honourable Minister of Niger-Delta and the Niger-Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Board to explain why the Commission has been spending monies that were not appropriated and approved by the National Assembly in violation of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"PLAC","author_link":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/author\/olumide-adebayo\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/NDDC-1-300x192.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["News<\/a>"],"unlinked":["News<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 6 years ago","modified":"Updated 6 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on November 20, 2019","modified":"Updated on November 20, 2019"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on November 20, 2019 12:00 am","modified":"Updated on November 20, 2019 12:00 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7244"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}