Basing on the need for a more efficient service delivery in Niger Delta region, Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Dr Samuel Ogbuku, has revealed that the safest way to achieve transformation and repositioning of the Commission inorder to facilitate the rapid development of the region, would be anchored in transparency and accountability; adding that NDDC, has left behind transactional leadership down to transformational engagement.
NDDC Boss hinted this recently, during an interactive session with the Deputy Group Managing Director of the United Bank for Africa, UBA, Mr. Muyiwa Akinyemi, who paid him a courtesy visit at the NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt, Ogbuku further explained that transiting from transaction to transformation means there must be transparency and accountability so as to render effective and efficient service delivery within the region.
Moreso, Ogbuku stated that the commission had set up a very strong building blocks culminating in the engagement of KPMG to design for commission who strive to attain a certain level of financial discipline, a corporate governance system that would lay down the Standard Operating Procedures, SOPs, for the Commission; maintaining that the SOP’s would ensure that the activities of the Commission were internally regulated to boost the confidence of stakeholders and development partners to do business with the Commission.
He noted that the Commission was already using the verifiable data base for the training of the youths of the region through the Holistic Opportunity Projects of Engagement, HOPE, initiative, which has since engaged the youths of the region in different fields and training platforms; while explaining that having a comprehensive data base for the youths in the region, would go a long way in the Commission’s plan of work, as well share the relevant data with other development agencies that may need them for planning.
However, in his own view on the area of entrepreneurship, Ogbuku noted that the commission through the Niger Delta Chambers of Commerce had streamlined engagement in giving support to farmers and verifiable entrepreneurs in the region; expressing the confidence that the NDDC can do more.
In the same vein, Ogbuku regretted that the Commission is limited by the bureaucracy of the operation of the Treasury Single Account, TSA, policy and appealed for the withdrawal of the Commission from the TSA.
Speaking earlier, Deputy Managing Director of UBA, Mr. Muyiwa Akinyemi, added that with the transformation that is going on in the NDDC, the bank was willing to do business with the interventionist agency.
He said the involvement of KPMG in the design of a corporate governance structure for the commission would increase the believability of partners that work with the Commission; while expressing that they were more secured to go into partnership with Commission now, after conducting a thorough review of the various levels of engagement in the commission.
