I have in front of me a report attributed to the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) dated December 2009. It is entitled ‘Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission – an independent civil society analysis’. Compilers of that report said that they were forced to write the analysis, though the DESOPADEC Board as at 2009 frustrated all attempts by the compilers of the above report to get specific details of how it spent the 50 per cent of the 13 per cent Derivation Fund it had received from 2007 when it was inaugurated till 2009.
Part of the report is a chronicle of what DESOPADEC said it had done with N51.1 billion – N10 billion in 2007, another N32 billion in 2008, and yet an N8 billion for 2009 it purportedly spent in the award of contracts for construction of roads, schools and hospitals, awards for scholarships, health centres and water projects. Flipping through the report, I found out that indeed there are copious references to projects already carried out by the Commission. Among the Isoko, Itsekiri, Ijaw, Urhobo and Ndokwa communities that are oil-bearing, DESOPADEC insists on its website that it has carried out 194 projects in education, 18 projects in oil and duly completed 28 health facilities, 88 transport/drainage projects, over 25 water projects and miscellaneous projects like agriculture and ‘social development’.
To verify these claims, I have had to put a call through to my folks in the Niger Delta, to ascertain that indeed Christmas, Odibo, and the Texaco Roads in Uzere, Isoko local government area have been ‘rehabilitated’ as DESOPADEC claimed it has done on the ANEEJ report. When my folks responded to my call, they said the claims made by the DESOPADEC since 2009 concerning the rehabilitation of these roads are false. According to them, Texaco and Odibo roads do not exist in Uzere town, but in Oleh, and the purported ‘rehabilitation’ of Christmas and Askia Roads were just a veneer of the expected work on the dilapidated and broken roads.
Before the dissolution of the board of the DESOPADEC last week, it had complained that it had ‘teething problems’, and that what it gets for capital projects is hardly enough. These allegations provoke questions: what has it done with what it got from the 50 per cent of the 13 per cent derivation fund? How does DESOPADEC monitor its inputs and outputs from what it has received over the years beyond buying airtime on radio and television to showcase what projects have been executed? How is DESOPADEC evaluating the outcome and impact of the transformers and solar-powered street lights it claims to have erected?
In an article published in Daily Independent of July 15, 2015 entitled ‘Increasing Niger Delta Communities’ Participation in Governance’, I was worried that though the DESOPADEC and Edo State Oil and Gas Producing Areas Development Commission (EDSOGPADEC) may have genuinely carried out several projects, there was no way in hell that Niger Deltans were going to know about these projects. Just on July 18, 2015, I was watching a former DESOPADEC board member, Joseph Ogeh, on television talking about the power projects that he has executed in Isokoland when suddenly there was power cut.
That is why we must try and do things differently from now on. In a survey conducted by ValueFronteira Ltd. & Africa Analytics Roundtable, most government institutions usually target five main sources of disseminating information – the radio, television, newspapers, town hall meetings and traditional religious institutions like the Churches and Mosques. They also seek to target young people through social media – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. The plan has consistently failed, and that is because the driver of these information distribution outlets, power, is always in short supply. A lot of Nigerians as well look to these methods for information on the budgets of the Niger Delta institutions. As a result, though there is marginal or average reason for the institutions to ask for more money for the projects they have executed, the fact that there is no way to verify whatever has been executed, there is room for the kind of suspicion and dissatisfaction that has led to the dissolution of the board of DESOPADEC.
What the Delta State governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, can do before reconstituting the DESOPADEC board, and indeed what other governors of the Niger Delta keen on monitoring the activities of these institutions, can do is to establish an independent task force to monitor and evaluate the activities of these institutions. I am well aware that there are claims by the people who run these institutions that they have internal audit and monitoring mechanisms. I am also aware that the Edo and Delta Houses of Assembly exercise oversight over the oil and gas commissions in their states. Unfortunately for everyone, both the internal and external methods of monitoring and evaluation by the Niger Delta institutions have not removed the shroud covering the budgets of these institutions. How are contracts awarded? Do they follow due process? Why are they reluctant to put basic information in public domain? These are some of the issues when resolved and when put in public domain that will improve the perception of the people concerning the operations of these development agencies in the Niger Delta.
The reason I am asking for an independent monitoring and evaluation team is that it is in line with expectations of transparency and good governance. Nigerians are getting very restive and are asking relevant questions bordering on transparency, accountability and good governance. A report credited to The Punch newspaper of May 15, 2015 had it that the Senate approved N299 billion for the Niger Delta development Commission (NDDC) for the 2015 budget. “The budget comprised N271 billion project (development) expenditure; N16.1 billion personnel expenditure; N10.4 billion overhead expenditure; and N1.8 billion as capital expenditure,” the paper said.
Now if from January to December 2015, the NDDC is to spend that amount of money, it cannot in good conscience be asking for more money if nobody knows how it has spent monies already disbursed. If from 2007 and 2009 a government agency like the DESOPADEC received N50 billion, it cannot in good conscience as well be asking for more money if nobody knows its budget. A key principle central to ergonomics is that processes of development must take and give proper account of the interaction between these processes and institutions, and take into account how these projects have had outcomes that deliver the greatest impact. This has not always been the case in the Niger Delta.
Civil society bodies, religious bodies, market women, self-employed people, the unemployed and retirees can be constituted into a local task force in the communities that they reside. Their job would be to work independently and informally of the DESOPADEC and EDSOGPADEC, to provide Niger Deltans reasonable feedback on the activities of the institutions in their communities.
I believe in their ability to do so can be strengthened by government. The National Assembly and respective Houses of Assembly should rev their oversight on institutions, such as NDDC, Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs as well as oil and gas commissions, to improve their effectiveness. There is also the need for these development agencies to share basic information such as annual budgets and other reports with the public, so that the people can follow their activities and give a fair assessment.
• Etemiku writes from Benin City, Edo State.