RVHA Goes Tough With Oil Firms

The Rivers State
House of Assembly says, the era of oil companies violating and denying the rights of communities in the state is over.
The Chairman of the House of Assembly Joint Committee on Public Complaints and Petitions, Hon Evans Bipi gave the warning yesterday in an interview with newsmen in Port Harcourt, concerning the complaint of neglect and abandonment by an indigenous oil firm, Niger Delta Petroleum Resources (NDPR) in Ahoada area of the state.
Bipi said the House Committee was in Ahoada East Local Government Area of the state to ascertain the claims by the people in the area that they were grossly neglected by the company, despite the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with the company.
According to him, the company failed to honour the invitation by the Assembly Committee for a round table negotiation with the communities involved in the area.
The committee chairman who adjourned the meeting to September 14, 2016 said the Assembly was prepared to slug it out with the oil company, if it failed to appear in the meeting for a resolution toward the communities’ grievances.
It was learnt that the company had been operating in the area since 2005 and had exploited over eight million barrels of crude oil with an average of 6,000 barrels per day.
It was also learnt that the company denied the communities in the area all the benefits enshrined in the MoU, including empowerment, payment of bursaries to students, skills acquisition, provision of pipe-borne water and construction of roads and community town halls among others in the area.

Enoch Epelle