{"id":24072,"date":"2020-07-10T14:33:28","date_gmt":"2020-07-10T14:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=24072"},"modified":"2020-07-10T14:33:28","modified_gmt":"2020-07-10T14:33:28","slug":"we-spent-n1-5bn-on-staff-as-covid-19-relief-funds-nddc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=24072","title":{"rendered":"We spent N1.5bn on staff \u2018as COVID-19 relief funds\u2019 \u2014NDDC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Kemebradikumo Pondei, admitted on Thursday that the commission spent N1.5 billion for staff as \u201cCOVID-19 relief funds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pondei stated this when he appeared at the Senate investigative hearing on the alleged misappropriation of N40 billion by the commission\u2019s Interim Management Committee (IMC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He appeared alongside other delegates from the commission at the hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The upper legislative chamber had on May 5 set up a seven-man ad-hoc committee to investigate the allegation against the NDDC management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawmakers<\/a> alleged that within three months, the IMC spent over N40 billion of the commission\u2019s fund \u201dwithout recourse to established processes of funds disbursement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also faulted the IMC \u201carbitrary use of executive power in an alleged wrongful sacking of management staff without recourse to established civil service rules and practice with the aim of allegedly concealing the funds\u2019 misappropriation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While responding to questions from the panel on the COVID-19 Relief Fund paid to NDDC staff, Pondei said the commission\u2019s management used \u201cN1.5 billion to take care of staff\u201d despite paying their salaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that part of the fund was for the youth of Niger Delta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NDDC<\/a> chief said: \u201cThe youth were given palliatives to help cushion the effect of the pandemic on the people. The youth were idle and to avoid violence, they were paid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cN5million was for youths, N5million for women, and N5million for people living with disabilities in each senatorial district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe remaining fund was spent on staff of the commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe used it to take care of ourselves. We are NDDC, we need to take care of ourselves too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Kemebradikumo Pondei, admitted on Thursday that the commission spent N1.5 billion for staff as \u201cCOVID-19 relief funds.\u201d Pondei stated this when he appeared at the Senate investigative hearing on the alleged misappropriation of N40 billion by the commission\u2019s Interim Management Committee (IMC). He appeared […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[27,6],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWe spent N1.5bn on staff \u2018as COVID-19 relief funds\u2019 \u2014NDDC » WatchDog Plus Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=24072\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Odofin\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=24072#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"COVID-19\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=27\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"We spent N1.5bn on staff \u2018as COVID-19 relief funds\u2019 \u2014NDDC\"}]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"We spent N1.5bn on staff \u2018as COVID-19 relief funds\u2019 \u2014NDDC » WatchDog Plus Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=24072","author":"Odofin","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=24072#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"COVID-19","item":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=27"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"We spent N1.5bn on staff \u2018as COVID-19 relief funds\u2019 \u2014NDDC"}]}]}},"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Odofin","author_link":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?author=2"},"rttpg_comment":3,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=27\" rel=\"category\">COVID-19<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=6\" rel=\"category\">Health<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"The Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Kemebradikumo Pondei, admitted on Thursday that the commission spent N1.5 billion for staff as \u201cCOVID-19 relief funds.\u201d Pondei stated this when he appeared at the Senate investigative hearing on the alleged misappropriation of N40 billion by the commission\u2019s Interim Management Committee (IMC). He appeared…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24072"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24072"}],"version-history":[{"count":-4,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}