Mohammed Shosanya
5 November 2008
Lagos — Major oil companies operating in the Niger Delta owe the host communities about S100million (about N11.6 billion) compensation, former Minister of Information Chief Edwin Clarke, has said.
Clarke said yesterday in Abuja that the unpaid compensation is the culmination of about 14,000 suites filed against the oil companies by the host communities over environmental degradation.
He said this at the plenary session of the ongoing Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR)'s 13th Health Safety and Environment (HSE) Biennial International conference on the oil and gas industry.
He said unless the communities are compensated, peace will continue to elude the region due to the effect of environmental degradation to the environment.
"As I'm speaking to you now, there are about 14,000 cases on environmental degradation brought by various host communities against the major oil companies worth about $100 million and they don't want to pay. They will make sure their lawyers go to court to frustrate the host communities' agitations," he said.
According to him, the 2008 being touted by the Federal government as deadline for gas flare out in the country is nothing but a farce.
He said: "The government is not interested in ending gas flaring. It is only because of the climate change that affected the whole world. Gas flaring in Nigeria is one of the highest in the oil communities in the whole world.
"The Federal Government said in 2008 that gas flaring will come to an end. But when I was delivering a similar lecture some years ago, I said yes, every government has a date for ending gas flaring. We are now hearing about 2014. Perhaps, the foremost 2020 will be the year gas flaring would end."
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