THISDAYonline

Contractors to the defunct Oil Mineral Producing Area Development Commission (OMPADEC) would not be retained by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

The Chairman of the NDDC, Chief Onyeama Ugochukwu, made the clarification in Port Harcourt, Rivers State while speaking with newsmen, adding that his commission would prefer to start with new contractors.

"We are not going to inherit OMPADEC contractors. We want to register our own contractors. That is why we have made it easy for people to obtain the registration forms free of charge," he said.

Ugochukwu said NDDC was different from OMPADEC and therefore had its own guidelines and structure which would ensure that contracts were awarded equitably.

"We have a new structure here and it wouldn't have been possible to just bring in what existed in OMPADEC," he explained.

Ugochukwu said the structural difference formed the basis on which some directors of the defunct OMPADEC were not retained by NDDC.

He, however, disclosed that moves were being made to ensure that the directors secured placements in other arms of the public service.

"We did not come here to spread employment. We came here to create employment and we have looked at all the cases very sympathetically and are not throwing people away. We're still making efforts to get them to continue their services in other areas of the public service," he assured.

On the recent legal action taken by 10 of the OMPADEC directors over their disengagement, Ugochukwu said seven out of the 10 had written to withdraw from the case, preferring to sort out the entitlements due them.

"Ten of them went to court to get an injunction, today seven of them have written to withdraw from the case and are talking about their entitlements, which we are paying," he said.

Ugochukwu said the directors had also written to the Secretary to the Federal Government asking for redeployment.

"Let me state clearly that we're not going the way of OMPADEC," he assured ,adding "part of what we've done so far, is to set guidelines and codes of conduct to ensure that we do not start a project and abandon it, we're going to complete the projects we start, we would make sure of that."

"And by our financial guidelines, we would also pay for projects on schedule, so that there are no variations and delays in whatever we are doing. We would establish that very clearly," he emphasised.