The authority of the Niger Delta Development Commission has said that the list of contract beneficiaries released by the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio is authentic.
Akpabio has mentioned some federal lawmakers and former governors as beneficiaries of the contracts awarded by the commission.
Some of the lawmakers on the list include Peter Nwaoboshi, chairman of the Senate committee on NDDC; Matthew Urhoghide, chairman of the Senate committee on public accounts; and Orji Uzor Kalu, senate whip.
The two former governors of Delta State, James Ibori and Emmanuel Uduaghan , are also listed as beneficiaries.
However, all of them have denied benefitting from the contracts, alleging that Akpabio is using his position to tarnish their reputation.
But the Director of the NDDC corporate affairs, Mr. Charles Odili in a statement on Tuesday, says the list emanates from the 8000 documents handed over to forensic auditors.
The statement reads in part, “The Interim Management Committee of the commission stands by the list which came from files already in the possession of the forensic auditors,” he said.
“It is not an Akpabio list but the NDDC’s list; the list is part of the volume of 8,000 documents already handed over to the forensic auditors.
“Prominent indigenes of the Niger Delta whose names were on the list should not panic as the commission knew that people used the names of prominent persons in the region to secure contracts, and the ongoing forensic audit would unearth those behind the contracts.
“[The] intention of the list was to expose committee chairmen in the national assembly who used fronts to collect contracts from the commission, some of which were never executed.”
President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered a forensic audit into the finances of the NDDC from 2001 to 2019.
