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Thursday, January 31, 2013
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Oil spills: Dutch court orders Shell to pay damages CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5
Ritsema said it was also a new development that an oil company was being held responsible for failing to prevent sabotage. There were 198 oil spills at Shell facilities in the Niger Delta last year, releasing around 26,000 barrels of oil, according to data from the company. The firm says 161 of these spills were caused by sabotage or theft, while 37 incidents were caused by operational failure. Local communities say Shell under-reports the amount of barrels spilled. The Senate has also insisted that Shell has failed to clean up oil spill sites in the Niger Delta, contrary to claims of having done so. Members of the Senate Environment Committee, which undertook an on-thespot visit of some spill sites last September, said they were surprised at what they met on the ground. At an interactive session with the management of Shell yesterday at the National Assembly, Chairman of the committee, Senator Bukola Saraki, said the areas visited where Shell claimed to have carried out remediation, did not show signs of remediation. “The method of remediation is of concern to us. We saw a contractor just exporting the contaminated soil and import fresh soil to fill the area. That is not the way it should be done,” Saraki said. Also, the Vice-Chairman of the committee, Senator Benedict Ayade, said Shell must evolve the best practice in remediating the spill sites, saying that it was not enough to use methods that were obsolete and no longer effective in curing soil that had been damaged by oil spills. The lawmakers said the practice of awarding remediation contractors to local contractors with little or no professional competence was compounding the problem and not solving it. But Sunmonu, while reacting to the issues raised by the committee, explained that serious challenges, ranging from illicit practices, security and lawlessness, had impeded the company’s efforts towards cleaning up the spill sites. He noted that between 2006 and 2012, about 1,500
sites had been remediated and they represented only those areas where Shell officials had access. Sunmonu disclosed that there was an average of 200 spills annually due to the activities of criminals. He noted that those sites within Shell’s right of way were immediately attended to, but sites that were off the right of way usually were not accessible due to community problems and insecurity. Sunmonu however assured that this year, the company would provide the conditions for the proper remediation in the sites accessible to it. “I am not denying the fact that some sites have not been properly done; there are some contractors who will not do good jobs; there are contractors who will cover up and run away, especially the sites that are isolated,” Sunmonu said. Meanwhile, Shell is also facing ongoing legal action brought in a British court on behalf of 11,000 members of the Niger Delta Bodo community, who say the company is responsible for spilling 500,000 barrels in 2008. Shell has admitted liability for two spills in the Bodo region but estimates the amount spilled is far lower. Bodo's case could be heard in the High Court in London next year. A United Nations report in 2011 on the Ogoniland region in the Niger Delta criticised Shell and other multinationals, and the Federal Government for 50 years of oil pollution. It said Ogoniland, where Shell no longer operates, needed the biggest-ever oil clean-up, which would take 25 years and cost an initial $1bn. A decade of militancy by armed groups in the Niger Delta, which had its origin in local anger over oil pollution, shut down nearly half of Nigeria's oil output until an amnesty in 2009. The Niger Delta is home to about 31 million people. "We will pay compensation. We didn't lose the case. It was not operational failure. The leak was the consequence of sabotage," Royal Dutch Shell's VicePresident for Environment, Allard Castelein, said in comments after the verdict was read. "Shell Nigeria should and could have prevented
this sabotage in an easy way," the court ruling said. "This is why the district court has sentenced Shell Nigeria to pay damages to the Nigerian plaintiff." Castelein said Shell would negotiate the amount of damages with the farmer, but that an appeal could postpone the outcome of
those talks. The affected farmers and fishermen had said they could no longer feed their families because the region had been polluted by oil from Shell's pipelines and production facilities. The pollution is a result of oil spills in 2004, 2005 and 2007, they said.
It is the first time a Dutch-registered company has been sued in a domestic court for offences alleged to have been carried out by a foreign subsidiary. The suit targeted Shell's parent company in the Netherlands and its Nigerian subsidiary, which operates a joint venture between
the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Shell, Total E&P Nigeria Limited and Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited. Shell Nigeria is the largest oil and gas company in Nigeria, with an output of more than one million barrels of oil or equivalent per day.
Members of Anti Corruption Network protesting against the judgement of Justice Abubakar Talba over Police Pension Fund at the National Assembly gate in Abuja, yesterday. PHOTO: ROTIMI OSASONA
Convicted pension boss remanded in prison CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5
ation where the majority believes the law was designed against the poor or petty offenders was not too good for the credibility of the anti-corruption war. He warned that the recent outrage over the light punishment meted out to a pension thief could send the wrong signals to the international community about the seriousness or sincerity of Nigeria in fighting corruption. The ex-vice president insisted that the existing penal provisions of the anti-corruption laws made it impossible to impose punishments that fit the gravity of the offences committed by white-collar criminals. Atiku, who played an active role in the formulation of the anti-corruption laws and creation of the EFCC, said that a decade afterwards, it was high time the provisions of the law were reviewed to strengthen the commission and the anti-graft war. Meanwhile, an activist group, Anti-Corruption Network, ACN, yesterday led two other groups, the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS,
and the Association of Unemployed Youths of Nigeria, AUYN, in a protest, demanding the sanctioning of Justice Talba. The group also called for the re-trial of the Yusufu case to ensure justice for the pensioners whose monies had been embezzled and to assuage the feelings of Nigerians. Executive Secretary and former member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Dino Melaye, led the ACN protest while NANS’ was led by its Senate President, Kolade Olaolu and Damesi Momoh held forte for the AUYN. Clad in black T-shirts and carrying placards and banners with various inscriptions, the protesters in their hundreds marched on the Ministry of Justice, the Supreme Court and the National Assembly, describing the judgement as a rape of justice. Some of the inscriptions read: “Judiciary is the hope of the highest bidders,” “Egunje spoils judges,” “Same Justice Talba did Kenny Martins fine,” “The blood of dead pensioners will haunt commercial judges” and “Talbanism: N32bn =N750, 000!!! Bad Maths.”
Addressing the protesters at the Ministry of Justice, Melaye said President Goodluck Jonathan, the leadership and members of the National Assembly and other wellmeaning Nigerians should realise that corruption had eaten deep into the fabric of the country’s national life. He said that they must do something urgent to reverse the looming consequences. “We are collaborating now with the Nigerian students and other groups that are interested in fighting corruption and part of our strategy is to ensure that we shout ‘barawo’ in the North; ‘ole’ in the South-West and ‘onyeoshi’ in the East of this country among others on corrupt people,” Melaye said. The petition, submitted to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloma Mukhtar, and copied the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, reads in part: “Nigerians are not so forgetful to recall that this same Justice Abubakar Talba presided over the Kenny Martins police equipment case until the case was dead and buried. He is also currently be-
ing tipped to become the Chief Judge of Adamawa State. “How else can we describe a situation where Mr. John Yusufu, a man involved in over N32.8bn pension scam was let off the hook with paltry N750, 000 only as fine option of two years jail term? “We recall that a magistrate’s court recently sentenced a man to two years jail term without option of fine for stealing a goat worth N5,000. You will also agree with us that China is the largest economy today, yet it punishes cases of corruption to serve as deterrent with capital punishment (death). “We call for a thorough investigation of Justice Talba and others like him so that appropriate punishments can be served on them. “We once again call for eradication of plea bargain. It is evil, nonsensical, archaic and detrimental to our avowed fight against corruption. “We advocate the China option of capital punishment for corruption, in which the family of the convicted and executed persons pay the bill for execution.”