In compliance with the order given by President Muhammadu Buhari, the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, has paid $5.901 Million to 197 students on its scholarship scheme.
Director of Corporate Affairs, NDDC, Charles Odili confirmed the payment during an interview with Vanguard.
Odili revealed that the commission paid 12 PhD students from 2016 and 13 PhD students from 2019 out of the 197 beneficiaries.
The number of PhD students paid totalled 43 and got $30,000 each, amounting to $1,290,000 adding that 154 MSC beneficiaries of 2019 were paid $30,000 each, amounting to $4, 420,000.
According to Odili, out of the 94 beneficiaries of 2018, 40 PhD and 54 MSC were still awaiting payment.
You will recall that several students under the NDDC scholarship scheme complained that they were left stranded as the commission has failed to fulfil its promise to pay their tuition fees and some allowances.
The students got the attention of President Buhari and he ordered the payment of their school fees and allowances after they staged a protest.
The protests came on the heels of the investigative hearing done by the House of Representatives on allegations of financial recklessness levelled against the NDDC.
Earlier, the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, ICPC said it has quizzed top management staff of the NDDC.
According to the Spokesperson for the ICPC, Mrs Azuka Ogugua, the quizzed NDDC officials were accused of various acts of corruption such as diversion of funds, procurement fraud and misappropriation of the agency’s COVID-19 funds.
The anti-graft agency said it was investigating the payments of millions of naira to the staff of the agency for foreign training during the COVID-19 full lockdown which were never attended as well as the non-payment of entitlements to students on foreign scholarship.
