The new forensic audit of the account of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) will beam searchlight on an earlier report from the office of the Auditor General of the Federation, AGF, in which the sum of N183 billion was said to be missing.

This followed the directive of President Muhammadu Buhari that the account of the intervention commission from 2001 to 2019 be subjected to a forensic audit.

Also to be captured in the forensic audit, according to a Presidency source, is the $20 million allegedly illegally transferred from the NDDC’s account in Union Bank to the UK branch of First Bank Plc. The transfer triggered in-fighting among members of the third Board of the NDDC .

Problems started within the ranks of the third Board on December 14, 2009 when Aginighan, the ED (Finance and Administration), reported Mr. Chibuzor Ugwuoha, the Managing Director, to the board chairman, AVM Larry Koinyan, accusing him of non-compliance with a directive regarding the change of signatories to the commission’s bank accounts. In addition, there was strong tiff between the Koinyan-led board and Ugwuoha over the management of some NDDC projects valued at N69 billion.

This crisis birthed the administrative panel chaired by Mr Steve Oronsaye, which finally led to the dissolution of the board. But the allegations were not cleared.

The Presidency source also hinted that an earlier audit which report was covered by the Goodluck Jonathan administration would be re-visited.

The then Auditor General of the Federation, Samuel Ukura, had in August 2015  affirmed that over N183 billion was missing from the accounts of the NDDC despite repeated denials by officials of the Commission.

In a statement signed by O.A. Ogunmosunle, the spokesperson of the Auditor General’s office, the office noted that the Auditor General first made the allegations of missing funds in a report he submitted to the National Assembly the previous week.

Ukura further accused the management of NDDC of unwillingness to cooperate with the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation when the Special Periodic Check was to be carried out on the accounts of the Commission.

The statement read: “The attention of the Management of the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation has been drawn to the claims by the Niger Delta Development Commission in some electronic and print media denying and casting aspersions on the Special Periodic Checks recently submitted to the National Assembly. Ordinarily, the Management of the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation would not have considered it worthy to join issues with the former.

“Nevertheless, the Office makes bold its statement public, based on the negative sentiments occasioned by the NDDC’s condemnation of the Special Periodic Checks in various media calculated to demean the efficacy of the Constitutional mandate carried out by the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation.

“It is noteworthy to state that it took NDDC, 16 months to grant the Office permission to commence the periodic checks beginning from 9th December, 2011 to 6th May, 2013. Similarly, it took another 16 months and several reminders to the NDDC with effect from the 24th of April, 2014 to 12th August, 2015 before the final report was submitted to the National Assembly. It may interest the reading publics to know that at the time of this Press Release, the NDDC is yet to respond to the Special Periodic Checks.

“It is pertinent to state unequivocally that the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation has a constitutional mandate to submit its Reports to the National Assembly and in doing so, due process are usually followed.

“It is therefore important to let the NDDC and the public know that the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation stands by the Special Periodic Checks on the NDDC and its contents. However, any person or corporate organization that is not satisfied with the contents of the Special Report has opportunity to defend itself before the Public Accounts Committees (PACs) of the National Assembly.”