Lack Of Design Delays N’Delta Dev – Orubebe

Former minister of state for Niger Delta Ministry, Godsday  Orubebe  has credited the delay in achieving substantial development in the Niger Delta region  to  poor funding and lack of tenable design for selected projects .

Elder Orubebe  made this known while answering questions during the  ministerial screening at the senate chambers, Tuesday .

The nominee, who waved the flag of amnesty as part of his achievement while in the dissolved cabinet, said the Niger Delta is just at the verge of reaping the fruits of the Federal Government’s recent attention to the region as the ministry had commenced the award of contracts in all the Niger Delta States .

His words”The Ministry of Niger Delta was not at any time given a lot of money to carry out its assignments and I have never said so. The mission that we went to the creek was to sell the vision of Mr. President to the former militants of the need for them to buy into the programme of the President. “That is what we did and we eventually have amnesty”. why we have not seen so many projects in the Niger Delta is because planning takes a lot of time. This Ministry came into effect in 2008 and effectively worked from June 2009.

The projects that we met were not projects into which we had inputs. Most of the projects that were there had no design. And we could not go into awarding contracts because there were no designs, So, designing and planning took a lot of time.

 Just before the last Federal Executive Council was dissolved, the Ministry of Niger Delta had started awarding contracts to all the nine states that make up the Niger Delta,” he said.

He told the senate that the foundation already laid by former minister, Ufot Ekaete and himself will take the region to greater heights .

 ”I believe that a solid foundation has been laid by Chief Ufot Ekwaete and myself and the next thing is the development of the Niger Delta. The Amnesty, so far, is on the move. The level we have reached now only needs re-invigoration and some structural adjustments for it to move on.

“As ministry of Niger Delta, we provided the action plan, the framework for the forward movement of the Amnesty programme, but somewhere along the line the ministry was not allowed to carry out the action plan put in place.

“Also, the amnesty committee that was eventually put in place stayed for a long time and later came back to the ministry and that was why they have that delay.” He said  

Nneka Amaechi- Nnadi (Abuja)

The Celebrant, Governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State (left), his wife Olufunke and Rivers State Governor, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, at the 54th birthday anniversary lecture of Governor Daniel in Abeokuta, yesterday