Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) has said it has so far spent about 2 billion dollars as counterpart funding by oil multinationals to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in the last 17 years.
Igo Weli, the General Manager, External Relations of SPDC, who made the numbers public at a one-day seminar tagged, “The Public Complaints Commission Mechanism for Addressing Citizens’ Grievances in a Democratic Dispensation”, organised by the Public Complaints Commission (PCC), on Wednesday in Port Harcourt said that about N44billion has been spent by the oil multinational to drive its Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU) with various hosts oil communities over the years.
He said that despite huge sums sunk in the NDDC over the years, there was nothing tangible to show in the region.
He said that a more proactive measure should be put in place to tackle rising hostility in oil communities.
He claimed that most of the attacks and criticisms that the oil giant is facing was a result of poor public understanding of what has been done and how the oil firm operates.
According to him: “There is no perfect company. Whatever happen go wrong because of the processes that are followed.”
He believed that alternative conflict resolution remains key in tackling restiveness and hostility in its operations as he added that, “the future of this country is in private sector investment.”
Weli noted that the biggest challenge oil multinationals face was communal conflict, but opined that there were a lot of opportunities to resolve such matters such as the PCC provides.
