Isaac money, PortHarcourt
Determined to reposition the Niger Delta Basin Development Authority (NDBDA) for better and higher productivity, to achieve President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s renewed Hope Agenda and Sustainable Food Security, Prince Ebitimi Amgbare, the Managing Director, Chief Executive Officer ( MD/CEO) embarks on radical progressive changes.
These include the dissolution of the procurement Unit of the Agency that had hitherto witnessed lack of integrity for decades, and checking workers laxity to work, a situation that was gradually becoming a tradition which has witnessed a retrogressive development of the hitherto vibrant agency.
The repositioning exercise commenced last December 2024 with the inauguration of a 14 member verification exercise which has unveiled lots of rot in the system.
In an interview shortly after he engaged various meetings with enlarged management team and ended with the Congress of the workforce at the headquarters of the Agency in Port Harcourt Tuesday, Prince Amgbare disclosed that the repositioning exercise is to prepare the work force for more productivity because of some landmark achievements recorded so far as in commercialising the farms and assets of the agency which is attracting a plathora of investors ready to kick off this year.
Projects in the palms of investors to take off this year are: Deep Sea fishing in Port Harcourt, the decades of abandoned Peremabiri and Isampou rice farms in Bayelsa state, the Kpong, Isiokpo and Asiama farms in Rivers state, and others in Delta state.
“So we thought it’s important to keep them ready for these investors that are coming , for the investors to.find our workers very useful when they come around
“So we came up with the verification exercise which is very encouraging and decided to top it up with attendance exercise which some people in the workforce would resist positive change especially if it’s taking them out of their comfort zone”, Prince Amgbare added.
He however said during the meetings , the workforce was made to understand the need for the reforms.
“So we saw that, and so since morning today we have been engaging with various stakeholders of of the work force including the enlarged management staff and the Congress.
“We have come to terms, that it is important we come to work. It is their primary responsibility to be committed to the job they applied to do. So we have taken that from them, a little to the right , a little to the left.
“The most important thing is that there is concensus for us to move forward,” he further disclosed
Prince Amgbare also clarified that the ‘attendance excise’ will continue and it’s for the good of the Agency, adding that the dissolution of the Procurement Unit is to strengthen the process, to protect the integrity of the process he met on board.
He disclosed that in its place an Ad-hoc committee which suppose to be the genuine process will be put in place.
He explained that, in the Ad-hoc process, there are already trained personnel for it, and they will be picked at random and get them to do the job.
His words: “We have a workforce that have been trained for procurement, we take them and use them for that purpose and after that we dissolve it.
“The benefit is that the integrity of the process is protected”, said the MD/ CEO, and further explained the corruptive nature of the system that was in place for decades, saying “when they know you as a member of the committee there is the tendency to lobby before time.
“That is the disadvantage of having a permanent committee.They lobby you and get you ready to do their biding. So we reviewed the last process, the report submitted by the head of committee her self, showed some lapses.
“We were hearing figures being bandied, figures of projects of various prices, encouraging contractors favourable to them to apply to win the jobs .So prices were being bandied.
“So we felt that the major thing about this process is integrity, the integrity is lost so we felt that lets make it fluid, we don’t know who is there, when it’s time we just constitute the committee and go into it and finish the matter
“The other option is to bring a consultant that is not closed also. If we see that we cannot protect the integrity of the process enough, we go for the consultants to come and do the job and go. But what is important is protecting the integrity of the process”.
The NDBDA boss emphasised the need to enforce the core civil service rules in the system to check discipline and laxity to work, stressing “the rules are there, no civil servant is ignorant of the rules, they all know the rules, the basic thing we are talking about is, come to work and you know when to come to work”.
Re- echoing the importance of the landmark reforms being channeled out to reposition the agency, Prince Amgbare noted that “on the whole ,the reforms are progressive changes , they are designed to bring progress and only an enemy of progress will resist it.
“We have made them to understand that some of these things we don’t need your permission because we are not going out of the civil service rules, it’s only when we are infringing on your rights then you complain, but we are not infringing on your rights, it’s the rules.
“We are just giving effect to the rules, and because they have laid back for so long they are finding it difficult to adjust”.