ABUJA— NON-OIL companies may be made to contribute to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) should the National Assembly amend the Act establishing the commission. Chairman, Senate Committee on Niger Delta, Senator John Kojo Brambaifa (Bayelsa West), disclosed this at a briefing organised last weekend to mark his first year in the Senate.
According to him, the commission need to be adequately funded, hence various avenues will be explored to increase the funding of the intervention organ of the Federal Government in the Niger Delta area. He said: “We are going to amend the NDDC Act to increase funding. The NDDC law is faulty and it requires amendment. When the amendment is done, for instance, oil companies will not be limited to what they are currently contributing.
“In fact, all companies operating in the Niger Delta would be made to contribute to the development of the area. For the NDDC to work properly, some percentage of the derivation should also be deducted at source before it gets to the states for the funding of the commission.”
Brambaifa said plans were afoot to set the process amending the Act in motion, saying the process would commence as soon as the Senate resumes from its recess. He said the Senate would ensure that all stakeholders were offered the opportunity to contribute to the process, as public hearings would be held for that purpose.
He used the forum to review the various intervention organs by the Federal Government, namely the Niger Delta Development Board and Oil Mineral Producing Areas development Commission (OMPADEC) and concluded that the NDDC’s intervention was on the right course, as it had been conceived to correct the failures of the previous organs. “NDDC is on the right course.
NDDC has a plan to develop the Niger Delta area, but I think they have a problem, which has to do with adequate funding. The peculiar nature of the Niger Delta area has made construction of roads money guzzling. To construct one road in the area could cost N5 billion and here you are with N40 billion budget. We need fund to develop the area,” he stated.
He clarified that the budget for the NDDC for the fiscal year 2004 is N47 billion, with N39 billion projected expenditure profile. On the agitations in the Niger Delta, particularly by the youths, he said the actions were justifiable in the light of the over 60 years of deprivation that the area had suffered, despite being the producer of the nation’s oil wealth. Brambaifa said he was in support of the youths in the Niger Delta whom he described as freedom fighters for drawing attention of all concerned to the under-development in the area.
He, however, pointed out that one of his major goals in the Senate was to ensure that peace reigned in the Niger Delta area, adding that “in the area of crisis resolution, we have been able to set up sub-committee on conflict resolution and we have resolved the Kola crisis in Akokotoru local government area of Rivers; we have been able to bring together the warring factions.”
On the Senate and its leadership in the last one year under Chief Adolphus Wabara, he said: “You could not have had a better Senate; this is the best Senate we can ever have.”
He dismissed the suggestion in some circles that the Senate was a rubber stamp, saying: “This Senate is a moderating organ to build the country and not to break it; it is not to bash or abuse President Obasanjo. The objective of the Senate is to help achieve the national progress.”
He said the Senate would embark on dialogue with President Obasanjo, if there was a policy that was unpopular, pointing out that this is what the Senate had been doing.
