By Karetimi Joshua


Yenagoa- The World Bank has directed its anti graft unit in collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) to investigate and prosecute the Delta State Commissioner for Women Affairs Mrs. Omatsola Williams. In a statement by the Task Team Leader of the World Bank in Nigeria, Mr. Ismaila Ceesay, the World Bank acknowledged the receipt of various petitions against the commissioner for women affairs bothering on stealing and mismanagement of SEEFOR project funds provided by the Bank. Niger Delta Voice had earlier forwarded a report to the World Bank on the stealing and mismanagement of SEEFOR community development funds. After preliminary investigation indicted the commissioner, the bank decided to hand over the case to EFCC for further investigation and prosecution. Below is the report sent by this news medium to the World Bank.

Good day sir, thanks for your prompt action on the issues raised concerning CDDSIU-SEEFOR Delta. We are sorry for the delay in our report on the state of CDDSIU Delta. It was due to delays in getting response from our readers across the state who had complained about the corruption going on in CDDSIU. We also had challenges in getting information from the state Project Coordinating unit due to allege complicity of the SEEFOR project coordinator Mr. Benson Odjoko in the embezzlement of project funds. This is the reason why the SEEFOR project coordinator wrote in defense of the corrupt Project Director of the CDDSIU. Our investigation revealed that the involvement of the SEEFOR Project Coordinator in the fraudulent transactions necessitated several letters he wrote to the World Bank in defense of the project Director. Of note among some of the issues that indicted the SEEFOR project Coordinator Mr.Benson Odjoko is the insertion of N8 million naira vote into the 2016 budget for MIS activities without a break down of how and what such monies will be spent on. The vote according to an inside source was undefined and as a result, that money was totally embezzled using fictitious memos raised in collaboration with the Commissioner Mrs. Omatsola Williams and the Project Director, Mrs. Akowoharehor Orubu. The negative impact of this high level corruption prompted members of benefiting communities across the state to contact us to bring the issues to the attention of government. From our findings, the SEEFOR CDD project is a very laudable intervention of the World Bank in collaboration with the Delta State government. The project seeks to among other things: create jobs for the teeming unemployed youths in rural communities across the state, provide basic social amenities in benefiting communities across the state through community participation and direct labour, create positive economic impact on benefiting communities, ensure circulation of project funds in benefiting communities through payment for services rendered by community people in course of project execution, enhances socioeconomic activities in benefiting communities etc. The project started in the state in mid 2013 and it was experimented in three local governments (Ughelli North, Isoko South and Ndokwa West) in the three senatorial district between 2013 and 2014. Between mid 2013 and 2014, there was a lag in implementation while employees were trying to get used to implementation strategies through field experience and capacity building. The project effectively took off in 2015 with an impressive performance rating and key indicators. This increase in performance was however short-lived due to the appointment of a new commissioner in 2015. According to a reliable source that sent a mail to us on condition of anonymity, "The project started very well on a very clean slate with the first project Director Mrs. Alice Akpoghene. The woman laid a very solid foundation for the project to succeed in the state before she was appointed a Permanent Secretary and later retired. She handed over to one Mr. Friday Ekpo as Project Director who effectively put the project on the part of accelerated development and his performance was impressive. Projects were being commissioned and Community Development Plans were being sent regularly to World Bank for approval until the new commissioner was appointed. The Commissioner Mrs. Omatsola Williams on assumption of office ordered that the two operational Hilux vehicles of the Agency be brought to her residence because she needed a back-up hilux and a vehicle for her Personal Assistant. This development was strange to the Project Director because the former commissioner does not interfere with the activities of the Agency. This prompted the Project Director to call the SEEFOR project coordinator to help him explain and appeal to the commissioner that the nature of the operations of the unit will not permit the use of operational vehicles as back-up hilux for her personal activities. The SEEFOR project coordinator then put a call to the commissioner and the Commissioner refused to release those vehicles. After their discussion, the commissioner then call the Permanent Secretary to immediately redeploy the Project Director to the Ministry. After the redeployment, the Commissioner told the permanent secretary to get a replacement with someone who is ready to be remitting huge amount of money to her every month. The PS quickly contacted the daughter of her former colleague in the office Mrs. Akowhoarehor Orubu who was the then head of operations to discuss the proposal. The woman who was already being accused of embezzling about N2 million naira of operational funds by her colleagues quickly accepted to be remitting N500,000.00 naira monthly to the commissioner on the condition that all other staff will be redeployed from the unit so that she can work with new people who will not understand why she is moving such monies out of the unit. The deal was struck and the posting was already prepared and the criminally minded woman was celebrating that those who wanted her to return 2million naira will be posted out and she will be directly in charge of project funds. However, the World Bank through SEEFOR rejected the redeployment and the agency's account was frozen to prevail on the commissioner to rescind her decision. The commissioner however refused to rescind her decision because of the monthly N500,000.00 that the criminal Akowhoarehor Orubu has promised her. She insisted that if the World Bank does not accept her candidate, the project should stop that she careless about the effect of the closure on benefiting communities. Unknowingly to her that the time she stopped the project was when the project has been expanded to include her own local government. She caused the agency to be shut down between January 2016 and April 2016. In creating an artificial excuse for the redeployment of the hardworking Project Director, the Commissioner accused him of not “reporting” properly to the Ministry. However, all the documents in SEEFOR show that there was timely report to the Ministry. Ironically, the report referred to is financial remittance to the commissioner. Since that allegation couldn't fly, they tried all means to get an allegation to justify his removal and they couldn't manufacture any allegation. Finally they agreed to use the word “incompetence” as a reason for his removal. They wrote to World Bank that they needed a very competent hand to run the office, adding that Mr. Ekpo Friday is not competent to handle the office. The parameters by which the commissioner arrived at that conclusion still remain unknown. Due to public outcry by benefiting communities who complained that prices of goods and services were increasing while they were waiting for World Bank and the commissioner to resolve their differences, The World Bank reluctantly approved the appointed of her criminal puppet as the Project Director and that marked the beginning of the failure of the unit. Prior to her appointment, the former Project Director had labored to produce 9 Community Development Plans which were approved by World Bank within the period the commissioner caused the office to shut down. These nine CDPs and other ongoing projects were eventually handed over to the newly appointed corrupt Project Director to implement. However, the Project Director could not deliver any project throughout the year 2016. There are projects among those nine CDPs handed over to her in 2016 that are yet to be completed as we speak. While basking on the euphoria of the fraudulent appointment given to her, she invited all staff of the unit to a meeting where she told them that in this new regime, she is going to encroach into everywhere to raise money to settle the commissioner monthly. She said that no areas will be spared. She listed areas that will be encroached to include running cost, promotion and outreach, fueling of vehicles to communities, fueling of boats to riverine communities, community sensitization, radio and TV adverts, staff field allowances, night allowance and taxation of benefiting communities. She hinted that the commissioner is aware that staff of the unit don’t pass the night in the field most times and they collect night allowance yet the vehicles are parked in the commissioners residence. Therefore such allowance would be shared and 50% will go to the commissioner. This proposal didn't go down well with staff of the unit. Those who stood up to question the legality behind such contribution were marked for posting out of the unit. The initial effect of these criminal activities was de-motivation of staff. Staff of the unit no longer takes their job seriously. They no longer come to the office as early as they used to come under the regime of Mrs. Akpoghene and Mr. Friday Ekpo. She then came up with a policy to rule out those who are late to work and issue query to them. That didn't solve the problem as most staff will resume very early and spent the whole of the week working on a memo that shouldn't take more than 3 hours when things were working normally. Tension heightened in the office when management staff discovered that there is difference between what she remits to the commissioner monthly and what she made them to believe that she was remitting to the commissioner. She generate as much fictitious memos as possible to pull out monies from unspent budget and running cost, she discourage working in the riverine areas which would consumed more money due to extra cost of hiring of boats in order for her to be able to save monies for sharing with the commissioner who is ironically from a riverine area. She also discourages working in areas far away from Asaba to save as much money as possible from the money budgeted for fueling of vehicles to the various communities. Mrs. Akowhoareghor Orubu collects all these monies and tells her fellow management staff that she has remitted all to the commissioner. Whereas in reality, she shared the money into two and present one part to the commissioner and starve the various departments of operational funds that would have enhance their performance. This led to serious altercation between her and the various heads of department. Meanwhile, whenever the fraudulent Project Director goes to remit monies to the commissioner, she is always excited. In her excited State, the only thing that comes out of her mouth is "If there is any body giving you problem or challenging you in that office, bring the name of the person to me, I will post the person out of that office within 24 hours”. When she gets to the office, she uses it to brag that the commissioner has told her to submit names of those giving her problems in the office. Their stay in the office is at her mercy. Anyone who questions her on any encroachment will be posted out of the office. At a point there was another altercation in the management meeting and it was after that meeting that she decided to compile names of management staff and those who are close to them for the commissioner to redeploy from the unit. The World Bank shouldn’t believe whatever excuse given for any negative action taken by that commissioner, they are all make- believe excuses to enable them steal as much monies as possible. The core interest of the commissioner in taking these actions is to protect her monthly remittance. It is not for the benefit of the project. Of course, the World Bank should be aware that the performance of the office reduced significantly that the office at a point was consuming more monies than it was giving out to benefiting communities. The report she is sending through the PC as record of her performance is fake and the PC is aware that they are fake. He chose to cover her up because of his involvement in the MIS budget of 2016 and other corrupt practices between the PC and the commissioner. A classical example is the Unenurie Science Laboratory that was completed in 2015 which was yet to be commissioned because of disagreement between the community chairman and the traditional ruler. Orubu listed the project and others as part of her achievement.
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http://nigerdeltavoice2..com.ng/2018/04/world-bank-hand-over-delta-commissioner.html

Thank God, this long overdue, the past and present management of delta state seefor should be arrested and probe, bunch of criminals. They keep on collecting money from world bank , taking fake projocts pictures and sending them to world bank
A friend of mine doing her nysc in there office in asaba was telling me how this people embezzle money, send fake pictures to world bank, and so on...the level of corruption there is alarming
Delta seefor should bring out one youth they have empowerd this year , let d world see, . what they do is go to a community gather some youths give them tools and PPE to wear and snap to post on their facebook page and send to world bank

For every public money you steal , you kill a human... CURSE WILL FOLLOW YOU AND YOUR GENERATION