Delta body to complete abandoned projects

A special body set up by Nigeria's president, Olusegun Obasanjo, to undertake rapid development of the country's impoverished Niger Delta oil region has started completing projects abandoned by its predecessor, officials said. The chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Onyema Ugochukwu, told IRIN on Tuesday that while new development projects were being designed, abandoned ones still considered useful are being completed. "We inherited about 1,300 projects that were uncompleted in (development) previous interventions," Ugochukwu said. "Many projects abandoned are still useful and have to be completed." The precursor to NDDC, now defunct, was the Oil Minerals Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC), set up by General Ibrahim Babangida,a former military ruler in the late 1980s. Instead of bringing development to the long-neglected region as expected, OMPADEC became a means of distributing patronage. Many of the projects it commissioned were abandoned after the contractors had been paid in full but before completing work. The NDDC has now identified 56 projects abandoned by OMPADEC on which 533 million naira (US $4.6 million) would be spent to complete them, Ugochukwu said. The projects cover mainly electricity and water supply and are scheduled for completion before the end of the year. Over the past decade unrest had grown in the region that produces most of the oil that is the mainstay of Nigeria's economy. Restive communities frequently disrupt oil operations to press demands for amenities and more access to the oil wealth produced on their land. Under the development programme being implemented by the NDDC, 60 percent of development projects are being sited in communities that host oil operations. Another 20 percent are going to all communities in the region on an equal basis. The remaining 20 percent would be shared equally between communities that had hosted oil operations in the past and those through which oil pipelines are rooted.