The Movement for the Survival of the Izon Ethnic Nationality in the Niger Delta (MOSIEND) has called on President Bola Tinubu to remove the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) from the list of government agencies under the Treasury Single Account (TSA).
MOSIEND national president, Dr. Kennedy West, who made the call in a chat with LEADERSHIP in Port Harcourt on Friday, said that as an interventionist agency, the NDDC should be saved from cumbersome bureaucratic bottlenecks in order to fast-track development.
West said: “Federal government should excuse NDDC from TSA list in order to fastrack development. As an interventionist agency, the NDDC has nothing to do with long bureaucratic bottlenecks.
“That alone is causing a huge setback for development from the time to begin to go through one rigorous process or the other. We are sure that Mr. President will want to see that in his tenure, he solves issues of the Niger Delta and demands reasonably at least at a logical end, before he leaves office.”
He restated the call for the review of the Act establishing the NDDC, saying that some sections of the Law have become a clog in the wheel of progress of the commission.
The MOSIEND President added: “There is the need to review the Act that created the NDDC in such a manner that such areas that have been a clog in the wheels of progress of NDDC should be reviewed constitutionally and legally brought to fore.
“Even before now, we have been advocating for it, more especially, which was also addressed, where we said that stakeholders should be part of project origin and evaluation. It is the stakeholders that clamoured for the establishment of the NDDC, even OMPADEC.
“So, how come stakeholders are not part of project monitoring and evaluation? So, this was part of the areas we were advocating and also that the NDDC should be excluded from the TSA. These are part of the issues that formed our decision to advocate earlier before now that the NDDC Act should be reviewed and let all those grey areas be addressed prominently.”
