Warri (Nigeria) (AFP)

Investigators track millions of euros missing from the coffers of the Nigerian federal body responsible for the development of the oil region of the Niger Delta and accused of being, like the opaque oil sector of the country, for a long time, eaten away. by corruption and mismanagement.

Each year, international oil companies must pay 3% of their annual investment budget to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), which also receives a contribution from the federal state.

In total, hundreds of millions of euros enter the NDDC coffers, intended to finance development projects or study grants for the nine Nigerian states of the Niger Delta.

But a parliamentary inquiry recently revealed that only a tiny fraction of the approximately 12,000 projects launched by the NDDC since its inception in 2000 had been completed.

In 2020 alone, 81 billion naira (180 million euros), or about a quarter of its budget, are suspected of having been embezzled from NDDC coffers, by officials or contractors.

Part of the sums are supposed to have financed in particular plane tickets and training sessions, at the same time when the country's airspace was closed due to the crisis linked to the new coronavirus

At the end of August, the Nigerian government tasked the Ernst & Young cabinet with the audits of the Commission from 2001 to 2019, ordered last October by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

"We will know how much money has actually been invested in the region over the past 19 years and if what we have received so far corresponds to the money injected into the NDDC", explained the Minister in charge of the Delta. of Niger in the federal government, Godswill Akpabio - himself the target of a parallel parliamentary inquiry into the current management of the NDDC.

- Ghost projects -

In July, NDDC director general Daniel Pondei fainted when he was heard by the parliamentary commission of inquiry.

Although its immense oil and gas reserves make it Nigeria's main source of wealth, the Niger Delta region remains poor and underdeveloped.

Misery and pollution due to oil exploitation led to the emergence of armed groups in the region in the early 2000s: violence, sabotage of infrastructure, kidnappings, attacks on oil companies had reduced oil production by a third, affecting state revenues.

As Africa's leading producer and exporter of oil, Nigeria derives the vast majority of its budget revenues from oil and over 90% of its foreign exchange resources.

However, in the south of the state of Bayelsa, the landscape is marked by the aborted projects of the NDDC.

The construction work for a dike, which began in 2010, has never been completed.

Road works to isolated communities are abandoned.

As for the 8 km road project to Ogbia, constituency of ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, whose tender was won in 2013 by the cousin of the former head of state, it did not never seen the light of day.

Community leaders complain that entrepreneurs, often from the region, abandon the sites as soon as they have received the huge sums of money from the NDDC.

"I do not see any NDDC project carried out in this community, although a large number have been launched here," one of them, Duateki Oriango-Oruwari, told AFP, sharing the frustration of the inhabitants. of the banks of the Niger River which "suffer daily coastal erosion".

- "Eyes on the cash register" -

For another, Alex Ekiyor, the "most depressing thing is knowing that when a public contract is awarded to a local child, he thinks only of his personal interest".

Some contractors claim that if the sites are abandoned it is because they were not paid by the NDDC.

Azibaola Robert, the cousin of ex-president Jonathan, affirms that the NDDC still owes him more than 1.25 million euros and promises: "When this money is paid, we will resume the work and the project will be completed. ".

The contractor also accuses certain local populations of obstructing the work: "The inhabitants of a local community seized our machines while we were dredging the sand of a river and asked us to use them or to pay them money. money".

For the NDDC investigation to make sense, industry observers say authorities must stop crony-based appointments to the Commission.

Those who are appointed "see their appointment as compensation not as a call to serve" and "take office with their eyes on the fund," Shaka Momodu recently wrote in the independent daily This Day.

This columnist argues that the oil companies that fund the NDDC should sit on the board and finds it "baffling" that they "continue to look elsewhere despite all this looting and corruption."

© 2020 AFP