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Nigeria: Lagos Blast - Reps Summon Construction Firm
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Vanguard (Lagos)
20 May 2008
Posted to the web 20 May 2008
Leon Usigbe
Lagos
THE House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) will today summon HITECH, the road construction company whose action apparently led to the pipeline fire that killed several people in Lagos last week.
The committee plans to move a motion today to invite the company, Lagos State government and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to explain their roles in the incident. Members of the committee including Hon. Doris Uboh and Chinyere Igwe who spoke in Abuja yesterday stated that the plan to summon them followed their nonchalant attitude towards the disaster. According to Uboh who had already led her sub committee on Petrol Products Marketing Company (PPMC) for an on the spot assessment of the area, the contractor Messrs Hitech was careless. "Did they not conduct a feasibility study before? Did they not see the PPMC Right of Way before? They struck the particular point where the pipeline was buried and it exploded causing the loss of lives.
"On the part of the Lagos state Government, it was unfortunate that they did not guide the contractor very well. They awarded the contract to the company and all those details should have been contained in the engineering drawing," she declared. The lawmaker added that "since the contractors have decided to run away and deny being culpable, we have sent for the files from the Corporate Affairs Commission CAC and we must know the Directors. They will come and explain why they had to start a job of that magnitude without taking adequate safety measures. They can't deny being culpable."
Igwe on his part noted that Hitech appeared not to have exercised the required caution around a sensitive area like the petroleum pipeline while the Lagos State government which awarded the contract for the road construction that led to the blast failed to rebury unearthed pipelines in the area.
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The lawmakers intend to chide the NNPC in the motion for its lack of proactive action on pipeline exposure and call for immediate palliative measures to ensure comfort for displaced people in the disaster area especially those who have been left to sleep in open places."
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