A group of contractors on Tuesday staged a peaceful protest at the corporate headquarters of the Niger Delta Development Commission in Port Harcourt, calling on the management of the commission to pay them without delay
The protesters, who are contractors handling NDDC projects across the nine states of the Niger Delta region, said they were aggrieved at the non-payment of their money by the commission.
The President of the Contractors Association of NDDC, Mr. Joe Adia, lamented that they were still being owed after the completion of the commission’s projects about five years ago.
Recalling that some of the contractors died out of frustration, Adia said their peaceful protest was aimed at drawing the attention of the new Acting Managing Director of the NDDC, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari, to their dilemma.
He added that some of the contractors’ Interim Payment Certificates were missing due to the delay in payment, even as he called on President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene in the matter.
Adia said, “We welcome the new acting Managing Director. We want her to know that the major problem is that contractors have been owed for about five years.
“Some their Interim Payment Certificate, IPM, is missing all because of this delay in payment. We want Mr. President to know that our major problem is payment.”
Also calling on the Federal Government to revoke fresh contracts awarded by the immediate past board of the NDDC, Adia argued that it was illogical to award new contracts when those awarded some years back had not been settled.
He expressed the need for the effective funding of the NDDC by the Federal Government, adding that government should also disburse the real amount earmarked for the NDDC as annual budget.
“They have awarded projects for 2015 in the budget. We are saying this should be cancelled. They should focus on payment of contractors. Federal government should fund NDDC properly.
“They will announce a budget for NDDC in billions, but at the end of the day, the cash that will be released will be far less. This is not right. They should release what they announce as budget.
“Contractors are the people to suffer if anything happens to NDDC. The workers will only go and look for another job. So, the acting MD should focus on payment of contractors,” the leader of the protesting contractors appealed.
The NDDC contractor, however, maintained that they did not have any problem with the new acting managing director of the commission, stressing that they were only at the premises of the NDDC to draw her (Semenitari) attention to their plight.
