Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Dr Samuel Ogbuku, says that accountability and transparency will reposition and transform the Commission to facilitate the rapid development of the Niger Delta region.
Ogbuku stated this when the Deputy Group Managing Director of the United Bank for Africa (UBA), Mr. Muyiwa Akinyemi, paid him a courtesy visit at the NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
He said the Commission has moved away from the era of transactional leadership to that of transformational engagement.
According to the NDDC boss, transiting from transaction to transformation means that there must be transparency and accountability for a more efficient service delivery in Nigeria’s oil-rich region.
In a statement by Pius Ughakpoteni,
Director, Corporate Affairs, the NDDC boss said in getting to the level of the financial discipline which the commission strives to attain, the commission had put in place solid building blocks culminating in the engagement of KPMG to designed for the Commission a corporate governance system which would lay down the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the Commission.
Ogbuku said the SOPs would ensure that the activities of the Commission were internally regulated to boost the confidence of stakeholders and development partners to do business with the Commission.
The NDDC boss said the Commission was already using the verifiable database for the training of the youths of the region through the Holistic Opportunity Projects of Engagement, (HOPE) initiative, which has since engaged the youths of the region in different fields and training platforms.
Building a comprehensive data base for the youths in the region, according to him, would give the Commission the opportunity to plan, as well as share the relevant data with other development agencies that may need them for planning.
In the area of entrepreneurship, Ogbuku noted that the NDDC through the Niger Delta Chambers of Commerce had streamlined engagement in giving support to farmers and verifiable entrepreneurs in the region.
While expressing confidence that the NDDC can do more, Ogbuku lamented that the Commission is limited by the bureaucracy of the operation of the Treasury Single Account, TSA, policy and canvassed for the removal of the Commission from it.
The Deputy Managing Director of UBA, Mr. Muyiwa Akinyemi, said that with the ongoing transformation in the NDDC, the bank was willing to do business with the interventionist agency.
He said the involvement of KPMG in the design of a corporate governance structure for the Commission would increase the believability of partners that work with the Commission.
He assured that after a review of the various levels of engagement in the commission, they were more assured of going into partnership.
