Group to Tinubu: Probe alleged mismanagement of $800million cleanup fund
The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP, has alleged the misappropriation of $ 800 million meant for the clean up of oil Ogoni polluted Ogoni environment. MOSOP urged President Tinubu to immediately set up a panel to probe the mismanagement of the said fund, calling for the immediate disillusion of all governing structures of the project.
The President of MOSOP, Fegalo Nsuke, disclosed this in a statement in Port Harcourt yesterday signed by Alex Akori, Secretary-General of the body.
The statement called on Tinubu to address the reckless mismanagement of the Ogoni cleanup fund, urging him to rescue the cleanup programme by probing the mismanagement of over $ 800 million allocated to the cleanup agency in seven years.
Nsuke also called for the dissolution of all governing structures of the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) pending the conclusion of investigations into the finances of the agency.
He said: “MOSOP wants to state that in the past 7 years, HYPREP has been severely decimated by looters. We emphatically state that over $ 200 million cannot be accounted for in HYPREP. The organisation has been looted to death and it will only be immoral for the government to be silent over such monumental fraud.
“MOSOP expects President Bola Tinubu to dissolve all governing structures of HYPREP, halt funding for the organisation and order a probe into its finances while a re-organisation is pending.
“In three weeks to the expiration of President Buhari’s tenure, over NGN180 Billion was approved for HYPREP. The timing of the approvals raised some red flags and reinforces our suspicion that such requests from the environment ministry and subsequent approvals could not have been made in good faith.
“The only way we the Ogoni people can begin to have some confidence in the cleanup process is that it has to be conducted transparently. People cannot spend over $800 million and the Ogoni people will not get water nor are people compensated for livelihood losses” he said.” Vanguard
