Senate Panel summons HYPREP coordinator over N17bn Ogoni Cleanup
The Senate on committee on public accounts on Tuesday issued a seven-day ultimatum to the project coordinator of Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP), Professor Nenibarini Zabbey, over N17 billion earmarked for the cleanup of polluted Ogoni land.
The Committee at a press briefing in the National Assembly said the ultimatum followed the refusal of the HYPREP Boss to honour requests to provide details on the utilization of N1,100,000,000 in the project`s 2022 budget, and an additional N16,683,000,000 in 2023 “for some undocumented contaminated sites”.
Chairman of the committee, Senator Aliyu Wadada Ahmed (SDP Nasarawa West) said the panel, in view of the behaviour of the Head of the project has “resolved to give up to 4th February, 2025” for him to appear before it, adding that if he fails to, other legislative measures will be invoked to compel his attendance.
It also demanded details of the utilization of the project`s provision in the 2024 budget, as and evidence of remittances it made to “FIRS (VAT & WHT) for the year 2022 to 2024”; as well as the general and current state of the Ogoni land.”
According to Wadada, HYPREP must further provide insights into appropriations for the project and other intervention funds, and how much it has received from the federal government.
A visibly angry Sen. Wadada listed the number of times the committee extended invitations to Zabbey to include : 18 December 2023, January 15, 2024, January 28, 2024, February 28, 2024, March 6, 2024, May 22, 224, and January 25, 2025 respectively.
“As you know, based on the constitutional responsibilities on this committee, we are scheduled to take the position of coordinator of HYPREP today. But unfortunately he is not here again. And this is not the first invitation to HYPREP. Based on the response that the committee had, or got from him on status enquiry.
“In fact this is the schedule of the invitation extended to the coordinator of HYPREP. And he wrote the committee on the 12 of January 2023 to extend his reason for not being able to respond to that invitation. And the reason was that he had an earlier engagement.
“The committee extended understanding and expected him on the 15 of January 2024. That also he did not respond and the reason was that he had to accompany his own minister to a function. The third invitation was on the 28 of January 2024 which he did not show up and no response was communicated to the committee,” Wadada continued as he described Zabbey`s behaviour as “ridiculous.”
He further pointed out that if there was no Nigeria the project coordinator`s excuses over holding meetings with the Minister of Environment (the project supervising body) would not have been possible, as he stressed that meetings with the Supervising minister should not take pre-eminence over appearing before the National Assembly.
The National Assembly is the people’s parliament and we are representing Nigerians here. And so meeting with the Minister should not take preference over and above appearing before this all important committee, particularly where a series of invitations were sent to him before now.
The National Assembly as empowered by the constitution compels private sectors to account. It is most unfortunate, most unacceptable that a public agency like HYPREP which of course for every kobo that passes through the table of the coordinator`s office or goes to that project is from public treasury, and must be accounted for,” the committee chairman insisted.
The project was established to address the environmental challenges in Ogoniland in line United with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
