Admin l Monday, June 17, 2019
PORT HARCOURT, Rivers, Nigeria – A Civil Society Organisation, Social Action Nigeria had said that the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Enviromental Project lacks transparency and accountability in its implementation of the Ogoni clean up as recommended by the United Nations Environmental Programme.
The Head, National Advocacy Centre, Social Action, Vivian Bellonwu who spoke to journalists in Port Harcourt during a Civil Society Media Forum in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital on Monday stated that the lack of transparency and accountability in HYPREP’s hiring of contractors to repair the Ogoni poluted environment had hampered the actuation of the process.
She added that background checks revealed that most of the contractors hired by HYPREP for the clean up lacked the pedigree for the job.
She said, “We are aware that HYPREP hired a number of contractors for the cleaning up of certain fields and polluted areas of the Ogoni environment, but the procedures for the awards of those contracts were not very transparent, some of the contractors that were hired were not duly qualified for those contracts.
“Some of those contractors, when we looked at the pre qualification requirements that HYPREP set out for itself. Our background studies showed that there were lots of gaps between those requirements and the state of the contractors, we fear that those gaps in the qualification of the contractors had contributed to the delay in the clean up.”
Bellonwu, charged all stakeholders to ensure that the Ogoni clean up was done properly due to the fact that Ogoni clean up was a pilot case for the restoration of the entire polluted Niger Delta region.
“Our interest in the clean up process generally, not just Ogoni, but in the entire Niger Delta region and beyond because we all know how issues of environmental degradation has affected everyone. We are particularly concerned about the Ogoni clean up because it’s like a pilot for the clean up of the entire region.
“If a thing doesn’t start well, the possibility of ot going forward would be difficult, therefore, all stakeholders should ensure that things are rightly done in the clean up of Ogoni.”
She maintained that her organisation as one of the earliest advocates for the restoration of Ogoni rights had beamed its searchlight on HYPREP as the body saddled with the responsibility for the remediation of Ogoni polluted areas by the federal government of Nigeria.
“We’ve been in the vanguard of campaigning for environmental restoration and remediation of Ogoni rights from the onset, even before the United Nations Environmental Programme assessment team came to do their work and came up with their report.
“We were happy when the federal government re-instated its commitment towards cleaning up the polluted areas in Ogoni and instituted HYPREP as the body that would be in charge of the UNEP report implementation, but since after HYPREP’s formation, we have had concerns in their activities.”
