Stakeholder Applauds Buhari’s Directive On Audit Of HYPREP’s Accounts

Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has applauded the directive of President Muhammadu Buhari on the audit of the accounts of Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP).
Uyi Ojo, the Executive Director of the foremost environmental civil organisation, gave the applause at the official presentation of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) assessment report and HYPREP’s performance scorecard to newsmen and members of its affiliates in Benin.
The Tide source reports HYPREP is an agency charged with the clean-up of Ogoniland and the Niger Delta States since its inception in 2016.
Uyi urged the president never to allow the directive to go the way of a similar one ordered into the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
This audit, he said, was currently in a long-drawn-out process on the work of the commission.
The executive director noted that apart from the accounts, an audit of the cleanup and remediation work carried out under the project should also be conducted by an independent body.
According to him, if the Nigerian government, the Ogoni people and partners are going to request the international community to support the continuation of the project, there must be transparency and accountability in the way the initial $1billion fund was utilised.
“The payment of $1 billion was for cleanup and remediation in the first five years in a cleanup that will last 25-30 years.
“The agreement between the Federal Government and Shell Petroleum Development on one hand, and the Ogoni community on the other hand, was for the contributing stakeholders to pay $200 million yearly for the initial five years.
“But for four years after the project was launched, only $360 million has been paid as confirmed by the NNPC during a public hearing at the House of Representatives in Abuja in 2020.
“There is no update on whether further transfers had been made for 2021 and 2022,’’ he said.