In DESOPADEC Mandate Areas Speak For Themselves – MD/CEO

The Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC) says its main focus at the moment is on completing ongoing projects inherited by the current Board of the Commission.

The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the interventionist agency, Chief Festus Ochonogor, who disclosed this during a hangout with Journalists at the Press Centre of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Delta State Council, in Asaba on Sunday, added that the Commission was also paying debts owed contractors 

Chief Ochonogor said new projects could only be started when the ongoing ones had substantially been completed so as not to flood the mandate areas with abandoned projects.

He pointed out that the Commission was established in 2007 to address the concerns of oil producing areas, arising from the effects of oil exploration, with a view to providing adequate social protection for the host communities. 

According to him, the mandate of the Commission covered the Itsekiri, Ijaw, Isoko, Urhobo, Ndokwa and Ika ethnic nationalities, each of which had a budget based on production quantum, and were allowed to propose projects for their people and determine the contractors to execute 

The MD/CEO said through the ethnic nationalities the Commission had kept faith with its mandate over time, having succeeded in providing some strategic infrastructural projects and building human capital through skill acquisition and empowerment programmes for women and youths.

Chief Ochonogor revealed that 200 brand owners drawn from the six ethnic nationalities recently benefitted from the fifth phase of the Commission’s empowerment programme, with each of them receiving starter packs and seed money of N500,000, while 500 women were listed for a grant of N100,000 each to boost their trades. 

He admitted that the ethnic nationalities had their different perspectives on issues, but added that the Commission was a rallying point for the oil producing areas and had succeeded in building bridges of peace and unity among them.

The MD said with the Commission effectively playing its interventionist role, the MORE agenda of the Oborevwori administration was on course and urged the people of its mandate areas to remain peaceful and supportive of the state government. 

Chief Ochonogor commended the NUJ for the hangout initiative, saying that he was happy to be at the Press Centre, which was built in his time as Commissioner for Housing, even as he solicited closer collaboration because the union and DESOPADEC. 

Earlier, while welcoming the guest, the Chairman, Delta State Council of the NUJ, Comrade Churchill Oyowe, commended him for the much DESOPADEC had achieved under his direction and pledged a more robust collaboration with the Commission.