Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Dr. Joi Nunieh, has ordered the Directorate of Planning, Research and Statistics to treat budgetary implementation requests (Recurrent and Capital from the various Directorates, Departments, Units and State Offices for the year 2020.

“The Directorate of Planning, Research and Statistics is hereby directed to treat budgetary implementation requests (Recurrent and Capital from the various Directorates, Departments, Units and State Offices for the year 2020,” she wrote in an internal memo sighted by this writer.

The Senate in November 2019 barred the NDDC Interim Management of the Commission from defending the agency’s 2020 budget.

However, Dr. Nunieh in a memo dated 15th January, 2020 said the sum of N80,881,610,074 was appropriated to NDDC in Nigeria’s 2020 Budget.

“Please recall that the President and Commander In Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari (CCFR) has signed into law the Federation’s 2020 Budget (Appropriation Act)’. Also in the approved Budget, the sum of N80,881,610,074 only has been appropriated to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

“It is pertinent to state here that the Commission is an Intervention Agency whose activities are predominantly in the Niger Delta Region with a peculiar and harsh geographical terrain and is greatly influenced by the weather conditions,” Dr. Nunieh wrote in the memo titled “Implementation of NDDC Budget”.