An audit conducted by the Bayelsa State Bureau of Statistics has identified at least 47 road construction and rehabilitation projects in the state that were awarded by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) but abandoned at various stages of completion, with combined contract values exceeding N18 billion.
The projects, spanning all eight local government areas in Bayelsa, include rural feeder roads, community access routes, and inter-LGA highways. Some were awarded as far back as 2014 and have not seen any contractor activity in years, while others were mobilised with advance payments and subsequently abandoned after minimal work.
The most egregious example documented in the audit is the Sagbama-Ekeremor road, awarded at N4.2 billion in 2017, on which only 12% of the contracted work has been completed despite the contractor receiving 70% of the contract sum.
NDDC Acting Managing Director Effiong Okon said the commission was aware of the problem and had set up a contract review committee to assess all abandoned projects and determine whether to terminate, recommission, or restructure the affected contracts. He did not provide a timeline for the completion of the review.
Community leaders in affected areas are demanding that the contractors who collected advance payments without completing work be prosecuted, and that the NDDC be made to publish a full register of all its active contracts with real-time progress reporting.
