The Northern Land Council has announced the sudden departure of chief executive officer Joe Martin-Jard with no explanation, which comes in the same week as the election of a new council chair.

NLC chair Matthew Ryan said in a brief statement on Thursday that Mr Martin-Jard would leave the role on Friday, but did not say he had resigned, and said the recruitment process for a new CEO and acting arrangements would be announced in “due course”.

He gave no reason for the departure but did say: “I am committed to providing the leadership to keep the organisation strong and advocating for the NLC’s seven regions.”

Mr Ryan, the West Arnhem Regional Council Mayor, was elected as the new NLC chair on Monday after the council’s first meeting since the death of former chair Dr Bush-Blanasi in November.

He will be NLC chair until at least December 2025, when the next council elections will be held.

“I am a man of words, of conversations. I will not sit down but move around the region, and my door will be open to everyone. I look forward to providing the leadership to keep the organisation strong and delivering for Aboriginal people across the NLC footprint,” he said in a statement.

Of Barabarra, Wurrpann, and Gurindiji descent, Mr Ryan lives in Maningrida, was first elected to the NLC in 2004, and has been serving his second non-consecutive term as NLC executive council member since 2022.

An Australian National Audit Office audit report from August last year found the NLC was undermined by a flawed system of fraud control measures that contravene mandatory Commonwealth rules, including not having a method to record fraud, while also identifying the method of choosing council representatives had not been reviewed for seven years despite repeated pledges.

The report said that while there was a fraud and corruption control plan, it was not clearly tied to identified fraud risks, fraud risk assessments were not conducted as frequently as required under the plan, it was unclear if reporting channels were confidential, and the NLC did not have a formal mechanism for recording incidents of fraud or suspected fraud.