Firm Proposes No Compensation, No Fine For Gas Flaring 

A Port Harcourt based law firm, Ntephe, Smith and Wills (NSW), is proposing a reform that will restrict the government from collecting fines for oil pollution and gas flaring without first giving adequate compensations to the victims of the disaster.
The lead counsel of the law firm, Mr. Iniruo Wills, came up with this proposal at a knowledge sharing session hosted by the chamber and the Institute of the Environment Limited, in Port Harcourt, recently.
Wills noted that over the years, government agencies were collecting fines from wrongdoers, especially in the oil and gas sector without giving a thought to the victims of the wrongdoing.
According to him, “we discovered that many times, government agencies charge fines, collect fines for example, for gas flaring and even for other crimes and offences generally, but the victims of those offences or crimes or wrongdoings are left uncompensated”.
Wills said the trend portrayed government in bad light, making it seem as if the government did not care about the well-being of its citizens.
He said, “So, government then appears to the society and affected communities and individuals as a soulless government. It’s as if the  government is only interested in collecting fines, it’s as if wrongdoing or criminal offences are a revenue-generating activities for government and government is not interested in ameliorating the conditions of the victims in compensating the victims”.
He said that while fines should go to the government as a penalty against the wrongdoers, the victims of a wrongdoing must also be compensated.
According to him, “because of the difference in our society in compensating victims, whether it is victims of rape, whether it is communities that are victims of environmental degradation, we are suggesting as a reform proposal that there should be a generic legislative prescription that every fine collecting agency of government must simultaneously, with the demand for fines or even prior to the demand for fines, make efforts to ascertain the victims of the wrongdoing, the victims of the offence and make sure that they are also compensated along with government collecting its fine”.
He continued, “No longer should government collect fines and not be interested in how victims are compensated. And the easiest example for those of us in the Niger Delta region is the example of penalties for gas flaring which government have been collecting over the years and yet it looks the other way when it comes to compensation for the community”.

By: Tonye Nria-Dappa