Resolve Bonga spill compensation, fishermen tell Presidency

Artisanal fishermen in the Niger Delta on Monday appealed to the Presidency to address the issue of outstanding compensation to victims of Bonga oil spill to salvage the fishing sector.

Francis Monday, the coordinator of shoreline communities and fishermen affected by the oil spill, made the call in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria in Yenagoa,he Bayelsa State capital.

The spill from an offshore field operated by Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCO) discharged 40,000 barrels of crude that polluted the Atlantic. The incident compelled fishermen to desert the sea.

The House of Representatives and National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) in December 2014 recommended payment of $3.6 billion as compensation to victims of the incident.

The victims alleged that refusal of the company to pay the compensation had crippled the sector and reduced fish supply.

“We have not been able to get out of the problems of that Bonga spill.

“More than 168,000 victims in 350 communities in Delta and Bayelsa were negatively impacted by the spillage. When the spillage occurred, the regulators directed fishermen to suspend operations to avoid catching contaminated fish and we complied.

“We withdrew from fishing activities till clean-up activities were completed. Many fishermen were thrown out of business following that incident which wiped out generations of fishes.

“That is why the Bonga fish, which the facility is named after, is almost extinct and scarce in the market,’’ Monday said.

The refusal of Shell to pay the compensation had made life difficult for fishermen in the Niger Delta region since December 2011, he said, and urged the oil firm to comply with the recommendations of NOSDRA and the National Assembly.

Monday said the regulators, the legislature, the victims and oil firm had reached advanced stages in resolving the pending compensation, and therefore appealed to the government to prevail on Shell to pay.

He refuted allegations that there were pending litigations with SNEPCO on the incident, saying “this is pursuant to SNEPCO’s recent letter to NOSDRA stating that it was not ready to settle the Bonga oil spill compensation because some persons took it (SNEPCO) to court.

“The claims are untrue and to the best of our knowledge, we all embraced the procedure adopted by the Federal Government regulatory agencies led by NOSDRA. We are not in court over this spill incident.

“At the beginning of the House of Representatives and NOSDRA’s initiative, we withdrew all cases on the incident to pave way for settlement by regulators,’’ he said.

Precious Okolobo, the head of media relations in SNEPCO, declined comments when contacted for reactions to the incident.