Further revelations have emerged over the alleged financial recklessness in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
The top management of the agency shared N4.9bn among themselves. However, it was done in the guise of medical checkups at a time when Nigeria was under lockdown to check COVID-19 spread, a Senate report has shown.
The management, the report said, paid N114.9m as a supplementary medical allowance to 26 staff members during the same period.
According to the report, the monies were paid to the individual accounts in March and April this year, while that acting Managing Director, Kemebradikumo Pondei, and the two executive directors got N14.2m each.
The first Interim Management Committee led by Joi Nunieh was, however, cleared of any wrongdoing as the report stated that no such payment took place during her tenure.
Furthermore, the report stated that available data showed that the allowance had been in existence even though it appeared to have no specific policy underpinning it.
The report stated:
The three members of the Interim Management Committee received the highest amount of N142m each.
Two other people, namely Evan Caroline Nagbo and Ms Cecilia Akintomide, took N12,387,500 each, while Peter Uwa Edieya was paid N10,340,000.
The report further added that four other members of staff collected about N8m each while 140 others collected an average of N7m each.
READ ALSO: Nigeria Records Lowest Daily COVID-19 Figure In Two Months
Meanwhile, the NDDC management, according to the report, also paid 75 others N6m each while 153 staff members were paid N5.5m.
Four other categories of staff were said to have been paid between N4.1m and N4.8m while seven others got about N3m each.
The document also indicated that 804 staff members collected between N2.4m and N2.9m each.
The management paid N114.9m as a supplementary medical allowance to 26 staff members, the document also showed.
No fewer than 15 of them got N7m while one of them collected N5.2m.
The rest however collected between N375, 000 and N550, 000 each.
The report revealed that “payment to all the 1,401 staff who received the allowance was made on 16 March 2020.”
It added that the distribution of the payment category and the number of staff did not suggest a regular hierarchical pattern and an absence of clear policy, which raised suspicion of arbitrariness.