Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) says it is commitment to working with government’s agencies to provide drinkable water for some communities in Ogoni in Rivers.
Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, the Managing Director, SPDC, said this on Tuesday while speaking with newsmen, during a courtesy call on the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Mr Godsday Orubebe, in Abuja .
Sunmonu said the provision of drinkable water was one of the three recommendations contained in the UN report on Ogoniland. “The UN report itself has three clear recommendations for SPDC and we are committed to working on those recommendations very quickly,” he said, adding: Let me make a statement that the UN report is about 1,000 pages and it is a report which was just issued on Thursday or Friday. It will take time for us to digest it, understand the issues that were raised there and investigate them before I can give a much more
detailed response.”
He stated that the company would be working with government agencies to address, especially, the emergency measures that the UN report needed to be addressed.
According to him, the emergency measure which UN report has said needed to be addressed is about making sure that there is a provision of drinkable water in some specific communities in Ogoniland.
The SPDC boss further stated: “We are committed to work with all government agencies in making sure that this can happen very quickly. The UN report is a report that SPDC welcomes because it gives us a better understanding about spill in Ogoni. So let us be very clear, the report is about Ogoni, It is not about Niger Delta as a whole.
“We think that UN report is going to give us an opportunity to actually set about the whole reconciliation agenda in Ogoni,’’ Sunmonu stressed.
Speaking earlier, Orubebe, said the Federal Government had received the UN report and was reviewing it before responding to issues it contained.
The report indicted SPDC for causing land degradation in Ogoniland, stressing that about a billion dollars would be required to clean up the spill for the next five years.
