The new Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, has promised that his administration would give priority to strengthening the nine state offices of the commission.
Ogbuku made the promise while addressing the commission’s staff during his maiden visit to the Bayelsa State office in Yenagoa.
The NDDC MD remarked that the state offices provided the closest platform for the supervision of development projects and programmes being executed by the commission and therefore needed to be beefed up with expertise and materials.
“There shouldn’t be a disconnect between the headquarters in Port Harcourt and the various state offices across the Niger Delta region. We need to work in synergy to ensure that all our projects are properly supervised,” he said.
Ogbuku thanked the staff for the enthusiasm they showed in receiving him at the state office, noting that the visit had given him the opportunity to get acquainted with the activities in the state and familiarize himself with their achievements and challenges.
He said that seeing the facilities in the office at first hand would help the management to take decisions on how best to improve on the performance of staff in the state offices. He then pledged to initiate actions that would improve the working environment in the office.
“We will create a conducive environment that will encourage creativity and innovation in the performance of our duties, as part of measures to enable us achieve the mandate of NDDC as an interventionist agency,” he said.
He commended the Director of the state office for his dedication to duty and selfless service to the Commission.
The Director, Bayelsa State Office, Mr. Theophilus Allagoa, called for better funding of the offices in the states, noting that the bulk of supervisory work of the Commission were done by them.
Allagoa observed that the flood that devastated many states last year, destroyed a lot of things in the Bayelsa Stater office. In addition, he said, many staff were rendered homeless. To cushion their pains, he appealed to the Managing Director to extend some palliatives to those impacted by the flood.
