The Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) revealed that its Board of Trustees has released $360m for the clean-up of the polluted Ogoni land in the Niger Delta.

The Project Coordinator, Prof Nenibarini Zabbey,  disclosed this after a four-day tour of remediated project sites and the reticulated water projects in the four local government areas of Ogoni.

HYPREP Coordinator said, “We are happy to report to you that a lot of activities are going on in Ogoniland. The mandate of HYPREP is mainly to restore the Ogoni environment, both land and wetland contaminated.

“We are also mandated to restore the livelihoods of the people. The much I know is that the board of trustees has released about $360,000,000.  We have not exhausted that amount. We are still paying the contractors”.

Zabbey said, “We have been in the field with them (Board of Trustees of Ogoni Trust Fund), showing them our facilities and project sites – the remediated sites and those that are active.

“We have taken them to water facilities and those who have benefitted from our livelihood programmes. We did this because it is the responsibility of the BoT/Ogoni Trust Fund to actually find out if we are spending the money, they are giving to the Project Coordination Office prudently. To also see if we have built-in sustainability framework into all of our activities.”