UNEP report: Minister blames delay in implementation on protest

BY BEN AGANDE
ABUJA— Effects of this year’s nationwide protest over the removal of fuel subsidy reverberated at the Presidential Villa yesterday as the Minister of Environment, Hadiza Mailafia, yesterday blamed the delay in the implementation of the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP, on the cleaning up of the environment of Ogoniland damaged by years of oil exploration on the protest.

The Minister  who led a team of Ministry of Environment and its  agencies to the Villa, however, promised that the implementation of the report had already commenced.

Hajia Mailafia who presented to the  President the ministry’s policy thrust for budget 2013 and the priority for budget 2012 said everything was being done to ensure that the implementation of the report was hitch-free.

She said:  “We are making enormous efforts, I agree that the presentation was made last year, but you recall that just after the presentation of the UNEP report, the country fell into some kind of unrest due to fuel subsidy.

“For quite a number of weeks, all of us were not doing what we should have been doing at that time. But it is not true that government is not doing anything.

“The UNEP report highlighted some immediate issues that needed to be addressed; finding potable or alternative supplies of drinking water, such as marking out the wells that were too polluted and doing other strategic framework activities that needed to be in place before the implementation.

“With the support of Governor Rotimi Amaechi and through the National Oil Spill Remediation Agency we have carried out all those tasks”.

“A place where pollution has taken place for a very long time, requires a very formidable approach and we have been working on it through the petroleum ministry. Am glad to inform you that everything is put in place and that we are just waiting for the execution.

“I want to debunk the statement that nothing has been done. Perhaps you on the other side are waiting just to see us on the ground. If you go there you will find that groups of people have been doing depending on the nature of what they have to do.

“It is not a situation where you just take officers and equipments and drive into a system and say I am going to clean up, it is beyond sweeping. It is the whole task of trying to remediate a place that has been polluted for decades”.

Mailafia also tasked Nigerians to safeguard their lives and environment by adhering to environmental laws and guidelines issued by the government.

This is coming on the heels of the declaration of statehood by the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) for the region.

It would be recalled that President Goodluck Jonathan on July 27th approved the setting up of a Hydro-Carbon Pollution Restoration Project, HYPREP, a step taken in furtherance of the Federal government’s commitment to implement the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Assessment Report on the spill disaster in Ogoniland.

The Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, who performed the inauguration had stated that  the setting up of HYPREP by Mr. President was in keeping with the Government’s determination to protect the environmental human rights of the people.

She stated that “With the establishment of this project, it is expected that all stakeholders, especially the impacted communities, will cooperate fully with Government and grant unfettered access to all impacted sites to ensure complete success.”

Speaking On her presentation to the President, the minister of environment  said “For more than two hours, the Ministry presented it’s policy thrust for budget 2013 and the priority for budget 2012 and as it’s the tradition, it was discussed, and critiqued.

“We were here to brief the President and the team on the 2013 budget as you are aware the executive is making all efforts to ensure all budget is submitted very early and in good time good enough for us to get it back and begin to implement as at when due.

“The issues discussed have to do largely with the policy trust of the ministry which of course you are very conversant with. We will be looking at what we have done in the 2012 year, and what we can do better in terms of principally packaging our project, the manner of which we conceive the project and the manner in which we implement them”.