Oil Spill: Senate Rejects $1bn UN Fund For Ogoniland …Says It’s Unrealistic …Probes Abuse Of Expatriate Quota

The Senate has described as unrealistic the One billion Dollars ($1bn) FGN\Shell fund for clean up of oil spill sites in Ogoniland of Rivers State as recommended by the United Nations, and urged the Federal Government to review upwards the said fund.

This formed part of Senate’s resolution following a motion sponsored by Senator Yusuf Dati Baba and three others on the insufficiency of the fund to cater for the actual monetary requirements of the exercise.

Senator Datti Baba in the motion appreciated the attention the United Nations had given the Ogoni oil spills as well as Shell’s acceptance of responsibility for the spills, but expressed worry over the inadequacy of the recommended fund. He said, the fund failed to capture the issues of compensation to communities and rehabilitation of deprived and displaced persons in Ogoniland.

Speaking passionately on the issue, the senators regretted that the communities whose lives and sources of livelihood had been devastated were not captured in the rehabilitation exercise.

Senator Magnus Abe (Rivers South-East) who co-sponsored the motion noted that the communities were continuously being neglected, arguring that while the nation and the multinational companies used oil to survive, the people were abandoned to their fate. He therefore urged the committee handling the issue to look beyond Ogoniland.

Senator Abba Ibrahim lamented that such a paltry amount was recommended for clean up of oil spills sites in Ogoniland, saying, $10billion  was recently recommended for clean up of an oil spill site in the United States.

He wondered why Nigeria was being treated differently even when communities in the country were exposed to more danger than other parts of the world that suffered similar environmental devastation.

He also recommended that the report should go beyond the Ogoniland to other parts of the Niger Delta where the people’s land and sources of livelihood had been devastated.

Sen Paulker observed that most of the laws covering oil spillage punishments were already obnoxious and unrealistic as some were reviewed last in the 60s.

Paulker observed that because the fines had become so low, multinational companies cared less about their illegal operations, and urged the Federal Government to exert pressure on oil companies particularly Shell to implement the recommendations of an earlier report.

The Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu who presided over the session, yesterday, in his ruling directed the Petroleum Resources Committee to look into the matter and report back to the Senate in eight weeks.

Ekweremadu assured that the Senate would not relent until the recommendations of the report were implemented.

Meanwhile, an alarm over an alleged influx of expatriates into the employment of multinational companies operating in the country has been raised in the upper chambers of the National Assembly with a view to curbing such abuse of expatriate quota capable of   undermining Nigerian government’s efforts in reducing unemployment rate among Nigerian youths.

The Senate, therefore, following a motion on the issue sponsored by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Employment , Labour and Productivity, Senator Wilson Ake (Rivers West) mandated the committee to carry out further investigations on the issue.

Presenting the motion , Senator Ake noted that the provisions of the Immigration Act Cap 11 (2004) empower the Immigration Service and the Nigerian Investment Council to grant expatriate quota to companies seeking to employ expatriates in Nigeria on the approval of the governing boards of such companies.

Senator Ake also noted that such approvals were meant to bring in foreigners only when such experts were not available locally.

According to him, such an employment was only meant to fill inadequate supply of manpower, trained local manpower so as to attract foreign investment into the country but noted that transfer of technology through that process was on the increase, thereby depriving qualified Nigerians of employment opportunities to the extent that the companies were bringing their domestic staff into the country from abroad.

The lawmaker expressed worry over the high rate of unemployment of Nigerians where over 32.5 million Nigerians were unemployed while a foreign company was bringing over 300 expatriates for employment.

All the senators who contributed in the motion condemned such flagrant abuse of constitutional provisions .

Senator Eta Enang accused the Federal Government and state government agencies of not doing their work well by checking such abuses in time.

He said some companies were not even aware of their supposed quota capacity because they were not well informed.

The Deputy Senate President observed that expatriates are welcomed in the country just as Nigerians also go abroad to work but within the provisions of the law . He, therefore, gave the Senate Committee on Labour the mandate to carry out further investigations on the issue and report to the Senate. He also pointed out that a review of the Immigration Act might be necessary.

Nneka Amaechi_ Nnadi, Abuja

Rivers State Governor, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi (right), receiving a paper from President of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), Comrade Babatunde Ogun, during a courtesy visit in Government House, Port Harcourt, Monday.