Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The controversy over the award of pipeline rehabilitation contracts to companies owned by persons from only one section of the country is yet to end, as the Movement for the Survival of Izon Ethnic Nationality in the Niger Delta, MOSIEND, has demanded for immediate investigation of NNPC Ltd and its Group CEO Mele Kyari, on the matter.
Recall that the 17 companies awarded contracts for maintenance and rehabilitation of pipeline across the country by NNPC are reportedly owned northerners, as stakeholders claimed companies owned by Niger Delta people were sidelined in the contract; a claim which NNPC Ltd has denied.
MOSIEND particularly threatened that if the processes that led to the contract award are not investigated and the contracts revoked, it will mobilize its members to stop the said contractors from carrying out pipeline rehabilitation jobs within the Niger-Delta region.
The National Secretary of MOSIEND, Mr. Winston Cottrell Amain, accused NNPC Ltd of deliberately denying and excluding contractors from the Niger Delta region from the contract, while secretly awarding the pipeline rehabilitation jobs to companies owned by Northerners.
Cottrell frowned at what he described as the suppressive attitude of the management of NNPCL and its sister agencies in awarding of the multi- billion-dollar pipelines maintenance and rehabilitation contracts, without recourse to indigenous contractors from the region.
“If the awarded pipelines maintenance and rehabilitation contracts are not revoked and re-awarded to qualified Niger Deltans, the presence of the contractor are not welcome anywhere around the creeks.”
MOSIEND maintained that companies within the oil and gas sector owned by people from the Niger Delta, have the prerequisite capacity in carrying out the said contracts, and wondered why the contracts were awarded only to northerners.
“A typical example of our capacity in the Niger Delta is our active involvement in pipelines surveillance, which over the years the Nigeria Government with all the military formation has failed woefully to protect.
“We shall resist all plots and plans to allow NNPCL, Mele Kyari and his cronies to cart away such huge amount of money at the detriment of the Niger Delta people.
“MOSIEND and its affiliate hereby call on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to immediately investigate other activities of Mele Kyari and NNPCL, especially the process in awarding these contracts to Northerners to the detriment of Niger Deltans, in order to avert another round of militancy in the Niger Delta region.”
This article was originally posted at sweetcrudereports.com
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