Senate Committee on Oil and Gas Host Community is summoning the management of Saipem, Chiyoda, and Daewoo (SCD) Joint Venture (JV) to appear before it over the recent protest by the youth of Finima community in Bonny local government area of Rivers State, which stopped construction work at the Train Seven Project of the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG) site.
This was revealed at the weekend when the technical team sent by the Senate Committee led by the Technical Adviser to the Senate Committee, Engr. Emine Tiyeinabeso visited the Finima community to meet with the people and examine the issues that led to the protest.
Speaking during the visit, Tiyeinabeso expressed displeasure over the management of SCD JV’s failure to have a working document with the host community despite extant provisions captured in the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
He noted further that while the federal government was working hard to ensure that host communities benefit from projects and facilities in their domains, some contractors were opposing such initiatives.
Narrating his feelings after being taken around some facilities in Finima, Tiyeinabeso said: “It is heart-bleeding, it’s quite disheartening; despite the high level of awareness within the Niger Delta region and Nigeria at large, some IOCs and at the same time EPC contractors are finding it very difficult to have working documents with our host communities, to be sure that the communities are being carried along in their activities.
“I wonder what they are looking for. The Federal Government is doing everything humanly possible to ensure peace in every oil and gas host community. Then, the EPC contractors, who are servicing companies that are to carry out the services of those IOCs, are making things difficult for the communities.
“I went to Tecnimont at Port Harcourt refinery, and I was so glad that there was a working document between Tecnimont SPA and the host communities, and they are relating very well despite some challenges.
“But NLNG, a well-renowned company in Nigeria, giving a job to Saipem, Daewoo and Chiyoda to carry out Train 7; it is the first of its kind that I am hearing that they are not having a working document with the host community.
“We are talking of the host, not the impacted community; nobody can deny the fact that Finima is the host of NLNG. I have noticed that the people of Finima are peace-loving people; otherwise, I don’t know what would have become of this.
“But, we are still pleading with the youth of Finima to sheath their swords. The Senate Committee will look into this matter and invite the management of the SCD JV to explain why there is no working document with the host community.”
Welcoming the technical team, the Amadabo of Finima and Head of Buoye Omuso Brown Major House, Aseme-Alabo Dagogo Brown, said it was only by divine coincidence that the team was visiting the community after the youth protest following many failed attempts to meet with the management of the SCD JV as the host community.
Brown, who stressed that Finima was not under Bonny but part of the big island, argued further that they were willing to share some of their entitlements with their brothers in the neighbourhood.
He said, “The elephant is too big for us alone and so we can always remember our brothers in the neighbourhood, but we are seeing today that we want to be kept behind for something that belongs to us and let us be begging. As a people, humans created by God, of course, will react, and humans will always react to upset the imbalance.”