By: Felix Ikpotor
The Central Result Delivery Coordination Unit, Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Policy and Coordination have expressed satisfaction with the level of work so far carried out by the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) in the ongoing clean up of Ogoniland as recommended by the United Nations Environmental Report (UNEP).
Coordinator of the Unit, Esege Ebei Esege gave the commendation during a visit to the projects remediation sites and facilities in the four local government areas of Ogoniland.
He said the interest of the unit is to track projects being done by federal agencies and parrastatals. He said the visit to HYPREP sites is to ensure that the projects are done in line with the UNEP recommendations.
He commended the Ogoni communities for taking ownership of the projects in their communities, and called for further support from agancies and parrastatals for the project.
Esege said: “The purpose of our coming here is to see for ourselves the projects being implemented by HYPREP over the period and our coming here indeed has opened our eyes to see what HYPREP is actually doing in respect of the projects they are implementing which we are tracking. Our unit, we have that mandate to track what all the MDAs are doing, especially those that align with the high impact deliverables of Mr. President.
”We’ve seen a lot of projects being implemented by HYPREP. We’ve seen the cottage hospital, we’ve gone to the power plant, we’ve gone to the center of excellence. We’ve gone to another power plant and here we are also. And we’ve gone to a completed the remediation center.
”We’ve seen a lot but one thing is that from the projects we have seen most of these projects are being completed within or being implemented within the last two years and they’ve done so much in the implementation of this projects “
The unit coordinator also commended organisations that have supported HYPREP in carrying out its mandate and praised the leadership of HYPREP for their commitment to executing their mandate.
”We must also commend other organizations or institutions that are supporting them and especially the host communities. I think so far we’ve not heard of any incidents of insecurity or any of their equipment being stolen or theft or thereabout. There is that cooperation and one important thing that strikes us is that there is ownership by the local communities. There’s ownership by the local government, there’s ownership by the state government, including the people themselves.
”The leadership of HYPREP, we believe they are also committed to the work they do. I think it’s a good thing because one thing we want to do is that the issue of Ogoni cleanup is being addressed clearly in line with the UNEP recommendations,” he said.
Esege assured of exploring areas of collaboration identified from the visit to ensure speedy completion of the project.
While conducting the team round the project sites, HYPREP Project Coordinator, Prof Nenibarini Zabbey expresed optimism that their coming would help in speeding up projects approval and execution.
He stated that the HYPREP is currently implementing all UNEP recommendations concurrently.
”The Ogoni Clean-up Project is a priority project under the Renewed Hope Agenda and we have the mandate of the federal government to accelerate the process, that is why at the moment we are implementing all the UNEP recommended actions concurrently.
”For this particular visit, we at the Project Coordination Office of HYPREP are very excited because the Central Results Delivery Coordination Unit is under the presidency. They are in charge of documenting the delivarables of the federal government. So every quarter we send them reports on what we’ve been able to do, milestones that we’ve been able to achieve. So reading reports and seeing photographs is different from seeing the efforts and the infrastructures on ground. So we’ve been expecting their visits since last year. Here they are, so that makes us very happy, ” he said.
Zabbey, informed the visiting team that the project has over 100 sites in Ogoniland, which has created jobs for over 7,000 youth and women of Ogoni extraction.
He said the agency is working inline with its mandate, which is remediating all impacted lands and wetlands in Ogoni and providing alternative sources of livelihoods.
”But for our mangrove restoration, phase one, which is the pilot scheme that has to do with restoring multi-species of mangroves in 560 hectares of oil-degraded mangrove swamps. We have completed it 100%. The mangroves are doing very well. Our monitoring system is robust and we have recorded considerable recovery of water-bound diversity, especially key species that support the livelihoods of the people, such as periwinkle crabs, prawns and even fishes, ” the PC said.
He said phase one of the shoreline clean up has reached 72 percent completion while work is about to start on phsse two of it.
Zabbey also listed interventions in health to include building of two hospitals such as the Ogoni Specialist Hospital, Buan Cottage Hospital, strengthening of four health facilities in the four LGAs of Ogoni amongst others.
For his part, HYPREP Support Lead for Renaissance Energy Africa, Ehioze Igbinomwanhia, said the company is committed to ensuring that the Ogoni cleanup project is actualized.
“At various levels we’ve provided support in terms of funding and also in terms of project support which is also the task I’m here to do, and I must say that in going around I’ve seen good quality work being done both for the projects that support the livelihoods of the Ogoni people and also for the remediation works themselves.
”I am very pleased that the government has also shown their support. We are willing to work with them and we will continue working with them to ensure that the desire which we have in the Renaissance of seeing the Ogoni cleanup exercise completed and done and that people are able to really enjoy the benefits of all that have been aligned in the UNEP 2011 report, ” he stated.
Port Harcourt Spectator reports that the team were conducting round sites such as the Buan Cottage Hospital, Ogoni Specialist Hospital Kpite, Centre for Excellence in Environmental Restoration, Wiyaakara and Bodo sub-stations of the Ogoni Power Project, Eteo Water Scheme, Bomu shoreline project amongst others.
