Thanks to mediation by Shell Netherlands and local leaders in the Niger Delta have concluded an agreement on a major cleaning operation
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Development minister Lilianne Ploumen (Foreign Trade and Development) Saturday. The agreement was signed Friday in the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt.
The agreement is in accordance with Ploumen a great merit of former ambassador Bert Ronhaar who consulted with Shell Nigeria and leaders of local Bodo community about cleanup Oil pollution in their habitat. It is an area of over 1,000 acres, is heavily polluted in 2008 and 2009, both by operational errors and illegal wiretapping.
Shell and locals earlier this year agreed a settlement of 70 million compensation damage suffered by the Bodo community. Two companies have been chosen to clean up the oil spill
Minister Ploumen praises the conclusion of the agreement:. “It’s very good news that the parties are now out of work and clever Ronhaar. At the beginning of the process, they stood with their backs to each other. By his performance that attitude is reversed. As a result, the situation for the people and environment that will significantly improve. “
The Dutch Embassy in Abuja has been actively engaged in the negotiations, including through the organization of round tables and other activities necessary were to bring the negotiations on course and keep. The costs amount to approximately 350,000 euros.
Geert Ritsema of Friends of the Earth has expressed satisfaction at the agreement. He calls the deployment of Ronhaar and Ploumen praiseworthy. “The pressure on Shell from the Netherlands must remain high because Bodo is just one of thousands of places in the Niger Delta, where oil spills to the environment and the daily lives of people in the past sixty years have been completely destroyed. It is the largest and longest-lasting oil spill on earth “
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