’Femi Asu

A crowd of protesters on Friday stormed a crude oil flow station and gas plant in Rivers State, owned by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited, demanding for jobs and infrastructure development.

The SPDC-operated Joint Venture, in a statement, decried what it described as “illegal occupation” of the facilities by some persons, saying it had informed the authorities of the development and was working towards resuming safe operations.

It denied allegations of neglect of communities in Kula Kingdom and Belema in Rivers State, saying it had implemented a Global Memorandum of Understanding in the area that led to a wide variety of social investment projects including university scholarship awards.

The SPDC said its commitment to the welfare of host communities in the Niger Delta remained unshaken.

According to the statement, the Rivers State Government initiated a mediation process for the resolution of the disagreements in the community which had resulted in the creation of the Kula Project Implementation and Monitoring Committee in 2012.

It said the PIMC served as an interim platform for the delivery of social investment initiatives and programmes worth N263m in the Soku-San Berth Project.

“These projects are separate from the GMoU projects initiated by communities using funds provided by the SPDC JV,” the oil major said.

It said a GMoU was eventually signed in 2014 for the Kula Cluster but had not been implemented because of continuing intra-community disagreements.

Copyright PUNCH.               
All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.

Contact: [email protected]