Oil spillage: Reps demand list of defaulting oil companies from DPR

The House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on Oil spillage in the Niger Delta region on Tuesday challenged the management of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) over its monitoring of compliance of oil companies to prescribed environmental standards of operation and demanded the full list of oil companies that have oil spill records from the agency

The Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Amiru Tukur, who gave the marching order in Abuja at the commencement of investigation hearing into all clean-ups and remediation by all the oil companies operating in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria vowed that the panel carried out its assignment to the logical conclusion

The Chairman, who frowned at the absence of most of the stakeholders summoned for the investigative hearing, assured that necessary action would be taken to sanction all the government agencies that refused to appear at the investigation.

While demanding that directors-general and chief executives of government agencies and oil companies operating in the oil producing states provide the Committee with a list of defaulting companies that engaged in oil spills, he threatened to issue them a warrant of arrest for not honouring the invitations duly extended to them.

Other committee members including the Deputy Chairman Hon. Henry Nwawuba also assured the invited oil companies chief executives and invited stakeholders that the committee would discharge its duties without fear or favour.

The committee, however, walked out the representative of the DG of NOSDRA, Mr Olubumi Akinjide, Director of Oil Spills of the Agency who sought to represent him, insisting on his physical presence.

Akinjide had told the probe panel that the DG had asked the committee to be excused from the investigation as he had scheduled a meeting with the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources prior to the meeting.

The Department of Petroleum Resources DPR DG was also represented by a Director Mrs DD Ufondu who informed the committee that the agency had penalized oil companies that did not comply with the agency’s oil spill directives

He also hinted that the agency had developed a template for monitoring of compliance to oil spills directives and supplied the committee with all their documents.

The committee however insisted that the agency must submit a list of oil companies that had failed to comply with clean-up directives by the agency.

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