The Senate has raised the alarm on how the management of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) paid retired generals for regional security surveillance of the agency’s projects without evidence of service delivery.

The Senator Matthew Urhoghide, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Edo South led Senate Committee on Public Accounts uncovered the said amount.

The committee is relying on special period check of the commission between 2013- 2018 by the Auditor General of the Federation. The Senate Committee discovered that the contract for the surveillance was not subjected to open competitive bidding according to Public Procurement Act 2007 24 (1).

The query read: “It was observed from the payment documents that between January 2017 and June 2018 that the sum of N698 million were expended or transferred to private security consultants for the “Regional Security” Surveillance of NDDC projects in Niger Delta.

“Engaging private security outfits in this volatile terrain is highly doubtful as they cannot be better than the Nigerian Military, police, NSCDC who are always at the service of the commission.

“The audit team made relentless efforts to sight the contract files of the security consultants with the view to verifying the term of engagement and the NSCDC clearance but proved abortive. Thus, making it very difficult, if not impossible to verify this claim as many of the purported private security consultants are not security outfits. Therefore, these are viewed as payment for services not executed contrary to Financial Regulations 708&3104.

“The Management should ensure that the consultants refund the sum of N689 million and furnish the office of the Auditor General for the Federation with evidence of recovery for authentication.”

[Vanguard]