The Chairman of the Governing Board of Niger Delta Development Commission NDDC, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, SAN, also in a statement confirmed that all backlogs of NDDC foreign scholarship program owed since 2012-2017 has been cleared.
“It is a huge relief that the issues surrounding our foreign scholarship backlogs have finally been sorted out, he said.
“By Tuesday next week, all outstanding issues regarding the foreign scholarship scheme would have been sorted out”
“Going forward, we can now begin to focus on new entries and deploy more coordinated, seamless and sustainable ways of granting and disbursing our scholarships to avoid a repeat of past shortcomings”
The current NDDC Board and Management on inception of their tenure in November 2017, inherited backlogs of unpaid foreign scholarships amounting to over $2miilion USD.
This left hundreds of Niger Delta students stranded abroad as a result of non-payment of their upkeep and tuition fees. This situation has been very thorny, generating negative and disturbing reactions for the Commission.
According to SA Communications to the Chairman NDDC, Mrs. Clara Braide, “You may recall that at the last Board meeting for the year 2017, held in Abuja on the 7th of December 2017, the Chairman disclosed to journalist the approval and deep commitment of the Board to clear all backlogs and all issues surrounding the highly contentious foreign scholarship program.
True to this promise, NDDC has indeed cleared all backlogs on the foreign scholarship owed to beneficiaries from 2012-2017.
Over $2million USD was disbursed in December to beneficiaries of this program. We believe this action will ameliorate all issues surrounding the scholarship scheme.
