Onnochie, NDDC mgmt. clash over fishy $15bn rail MoU
Lauretta Onnochie, the chairman of board of the Nigeria Delta Development Corporation (NDDC), and the management of the organisation have disagreed over a fishy Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed for the construction of a railway across the Niger Delta.
Onnochie claimed that the board, which is statutorily mandated to oversee such contract signing, have no knowledge about the signing.
“This was done without my knowledge and without the authorisation nor consent of the Board,” she said in her statement released to the public.
She equally described the MoU as “shady” while stating that the US-based company, Atlanta Global Resources Inc. is incompetent to oversee such a project.
Onnochie added the federal executive council had already allocated resources for rail construction to run through the region, thereby making the NDDC’s MoU a duplication.
Onnochie averred that the controversial MoU mirrored the “clumsy, shady and hazy transactions … that had bedevilled and stultified identifiable progress (by the NDDC) in the past. We cannot remain on the old dubious path,” she said.
However, in a contradicting statement, the NDDC management explained it only signed an MoU on “preliminary processes” and not on the “details” of the proposed project.
Ibitoye Abosede, its director of corporate affairs, said that “some persons may have misconstrued the foundational process to mean that the commission has signed the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract.”
“What we signed on April 25 is simply the opening phase that will determine how far we will go, but it definitely showcases how interested the international partners are in tapping into the Niger Delta region,” NDDC said.
TheCornet checks on Atlanta Global Resources Inc. reveals it only facilitates credit for infrastructure projects in developing countries.
According to information published on its website, Atlanta Global Resources Inc. says it has “expertise for credit in the developing countries” (and) “we create credit solutions to prepare our clients for what is next in their resolve for success.”
