Senate demands transparency in Ogoni project funding

The Senate on Monday demanded to ascertain the true source of funding for the Ogoni-land remediation project entered into by the federal government through the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in collaboration with major oil companies including Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC).

At a budget defence of the Ministry of Environment organized by the Senate Committee on Environment, the Senate urged the Minister of Environment, Amina Mohammed, to intimate Nigerians on how funding for the projects which is aimed at cleaning up Ogoniland from Oil pollution and rehabilitating its inhabitants is being sourced.

Although the Minister had earlier informed the legislators that the project is being completely funded by the two expatriate oil giants, while the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) provides staffing on the interim, the lawmakers expressed worry that the federal government is not involved in its financing wondering why expenditures of the programme being coordinated by the Ministry of Environment is not brought before the senate for the purpose of appropriation.

“We need to know the source of funding that the SPDC and NNPC are providing, because going into expenditure will require appropriation, irrespective of source in order to account for the project value and report accurately at the end of the financial year.

The exclusion of the National Assembly in appropriating those figures calls for question,” Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi (Kaduna North) noted, adding that from indications it could even be from the Joint Venture Companies (JVC) for which the federal government owns 60percent.

He stated that there is need to trace the source of the funding and come up with a breakdown of the activities that the ministry is going to go into utilizing the fund.

Senator Foster Ogola (Bayelsa West) on the other hand, criticised the pattern from which the Ogoniland project is being coordinated.

He expressed concern that the Ogoni clean up constitutes only about two percent of the entire Niger Delta and noting that it should not be covered in politics of funding.

“It gives us worry that we are playing politics with the source of funding, there has to be transparency on the expenditure, we own 60 percent of shell, so what is our own cash backing,” he asked, observing also that the impact of a $10 million take off grant for the project as explained by the minister is not visible.

The minister told the committee that the project estimate is N154 billion paid for by the joint project of SPDC and Shell, while federal government provided staff for the project.

Mrs. Mohammed also said that an interim sum of $1 billion was agreed on over a period of five years with $200 million to be provided every two years for the Ogoni clean-up programme.