‘INTELS has invested more than N12bn on community relations, CSR projects in 10 years’

It has been very cordial and we have gone through thick and thin together. I can’t remember a situation where we had crisis with our host community that required us shutting down our operations. They respect us and we also respect them. Between INTELS and its host community, it has been a win-win relationship.

We define our host communities within our CSR projects. We have CSR policy that is strictly community relations. Here, we have series of packages, for example: we do roads, build drainages, electricity, and solar lighting, built ultra modern market, civic centers and water projects. We invested in human capacity development, gave scholarship and skill acquisition, sponsor sport bodies, make direct donations to schools and among others.

In Onne, we have done 10 kilometers of concrete road network because concrete construction is more modern and stronger than asphalt. We have also done 20 kilometers of drainage, which was costlier than the road. We have done roads in Onne and Ogu because the terrain in Ogu is sandy with high rainfall, we used interlocking.

Ogu is the other community to the Oil and Gas Free Zone and we have done 8.2 kilometers of roads there. We started the process of putting solar lightening along the road. It is ongoing and will take the best part of the next three to five years in all the roads that we have done. Interestingly, we have done two ultra-modern markets, each costing us like N1 billion in Onne and Ogu.

Specifically in Rumukurushi community, we did between 13 and 15 town halls and several water projects. In terms of skill acquisition, we have trained almost 2,000 people in various skills. Our scholarship programme has touched at least over 1,000 people. We sponsor traditional sports and others annually. For example, we are part of the annual traditional wrestling competition in Ogbunabali.

INTELS also gives donations to schools to provide a particular facility in short supply. We also donate cups and sponsor inter-house sports in schools. On medicals, we have three mobile clinics that go into our communities to give free consultancy and drugs to the indigenes and non-indigenes of the communities.

Our investment in the road project has gone beyond community relations to CSR because it went outside our boundaries to affect everybody as well. We invested on the project because the road not only leads to our facility but it affects our operations. The greater parts of the road pass through our host Local Government Area (LGA) that is the Eleme LGA. So, by investing in this, we impact on not only our host community but on other communities in Eleme.

The East-West road connects Akwa Ibom to Rivers State and by rehabilitating the road; we have helped commerce in general. It was the Governor of Rivers, who mobilised companies to do something for Rivers State through the road project. Our Chairman, Mr. Gabriel Volpi, found it very essential to contribute to the Free Zone, Rivers State and neigbouring States with the whole aim of boosting commerce. At the time the budget for the road came up, it was about N3 billion and he graciously donated N1 billion for that purpose.

The larger CSR is decided by us and the top management. For instance, the East-West road project was driven by our founder while we determine the globally impacting community relations projects to execute.

Secondly, we discourage doing things for the benefit of an individual. For instance, if we have a water project, we will rather site the project in a place where every member of the community would have access. We also ensure that whatever we do is sustainable, that is why we discourage giving generators, for example, to the communities. Such project raises the question of who will supply the diesel and maintain the generator. We consider sustainability, public reach and access before choosing the type of CSR and community relations projects to embark on.

WEPSS is an acronym for Women Empowerment Project Synergy Scheme. It is about women and it encapsulates what our community relation is all about. We had run our community relations for about five to seven years but one day, the Queen of Onne came to us to say that most of our community relations projects were not for women. What we do when we hear such things is to go back as a department and think through it before drafting proposal to top management. To define what we do, we had to seat with the Queen and the women, and we eventually realised that we can train these women to make cloth. While they are being trained, the company pays them a stipend and at the end of their training, they have a choice to remain with us making coveralls or go back to their respective homes to sew. This is because we had the potential to employ them within WEPSS or empower them to go and make impact in their communities.

We trained 300 women in switching and they can sew the best coveralls used by oil companies. It was a learning process for the community and us because when the first batch graduated, they were perfect at sewing coveralls, which is a very good garment if you work within the Free Zone but that had its limit on the women. So, the second batch, we ensured that apart from coverall that every women can also sew shirt, trouser, skirt and blouse. This enabled them to go beyond the Free Zone to their communities to sew other kinds of clothes.

In a nutshell, WEPSS is a beautiful training ground for women and even graduates. We have about 20 or 30 women, who were retained after their training. It can only remain at that number because the economy is down for now but if business moves; we have to make more coveralls and that will give us room to retain more.

I will say it is very cordial. We have built relationship with them in the last 30 years.  We built friendship with them first before professional relations.  Our relationship is very cordial at various levels and it will only get more cordial.

I will say that we have spent something in the region of N12 billion. The number of people, who have graduated from our scholarship scheme, is enormous as well.

Our operations and communities are spread across four states in the Niger-Delta and they include Rivers, Delta, Cross Rivers and Bayelsa. Sometime, we do some project that go beyond our communities like our Mobile Clinics. On world malaria day, we went round to provide malaria enlightenment and drugs to them.

We also have a football academy in Abuja where we take footballers from their respective communities to train them. We now have one or two success stories. One or two of them were also in Brazil for Olympics.

It has been superb. This is because we do not impose these projects on them rather we discuss with them before embarking on projects. The road project, for instance, required some houses to be brought down. We sat with the heads of the communities, who now went to convince people why a portion of their houses would be removed and it was collectively done.

The decline in the international price of crude oil affects everybody in the oil and gas industry. We are sure that when things pick-up globally, regionally and nationally, we will also pick-up.

In our medical projects, we try as much as possible to meet the MDGs requirement. This is why we go out to do a lot of enlightenment campaigns. What we have done to a very large extent is fashioned by the MDGs, like education for example. MDGs have always been at the back of our taught process. We also try as much as possible to follow international trends.