Nigeria: Clark Challenges Shell to Publish List of Sacked Staff

Nigeria: Clark Challenges Shell to Publish List of Sacked Staff

Vanguard (Lagos)

4 June 2008
Posted to the web 5 June 2008

Emma Amaize
Lagos

NIGER-DELTA leaders have challenged the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) to publish the list of all the workers that it recently laid off and their places of origin if it’s serious on its claim that the retrenchment axe was not targeted at Niger-Delta citizens.

Reacting to the claim by the management of the company that the restructuring exercise was not targeted as Niger-Delta natives in the company, former Minister of Information, Chief Edwin Clark told Vanguard, “Let us have an audit of all the Nigerian employees of Shell, let us have an audit of all the personnel they sacked, that will speak for itself, it is not a question of saying I did not do my homework, I did my homework.

“I have the documents with me and at my age, I won’t be lying against Shell. Shell should produce a list of all their contract staff, how many of them come from the Niger-Delta, how many of them come from the South-East, how many come from the South-West and how many come from the two Northern regions.

Then, Shell will be talking and to go further on appointments, we want to know how many managerial staff in Shell are Niger-Deltans. These are things we want to know.

|”So, one is not lying against Shell, as I talk to you now, I have a list of contract staff of Shell. Let them produce their list of contract staff from South East, South West and the North. In fact, Shell is dominated by the natives of South-West and South-East, not many Northerners are there. We have done our homework.

That is why I said, go to the Ogunu office of Shell in Warri, look at the door where the senior staff are, how many of them come from the Niger-Delta?

“Recently in Shell’s so-called re-organisation, they created the post of Vice President, saying that they don’t have directors and general managers. Of these, three of them are Nigerians, one from Niger-Delta, whereas, the other two from other parts of the country but seven or six of the vice presidents are all expatriates.

Are we moving forward or we are moving backward? Why, in 2008, the SPDC, instead of increasing the Nigerian quota in its management cadre should be employing expatriates to replace our Nigerians.

“They have disorganised the whole place. I heard they are saying that the Niger-Delta crisis is getting so much, that they should move to the offshore, when we are in the offshore, they tell themselves, we will see what they will do with the crisis in the Niger-Delta, and if that is the reason for Shell doing what they are doing, they are making a mistake.

They have tried it in the past, between the former Mr. President and the former Group Managing Director of the NNPC; they wanted to establish an LNLG plant between Ondo and Ogun states, whereas they know very well that the place for that type of project is Niger-Delta.

They now want to pump gas to that place and it had been assessed that they will spend $3 billion dollars to lay pipeline from the Niger-Delta to the Atlantic and from the Atlantic to the Olokola or whatever they call it, is it not a waste of money. It is a waste of resources.

If you are building at textile mill in Brass and you go to Zamfara or Kano to bring raw cotton, is that not a waste, so this country needs proper direction. People of the Niger-Delta have suffered enough and we cannot continue, we have no water to drink, he asserted.

He said those who think he does not have his information correctly were joking, saying, â Å”Let me give an instance, the workers of Shell come to me in Kiagbodo here to complain. Shell wanted some policemen and decided to train some of them in Port-Harcourt, Warri and Lagos, can you imagine that those in Port-Harcourt, that is the Eastern zone were trained, those in Lagos were trained but those in Delta state were never trained and they led a delegation to me, I contacted Shell and the Commissioner of Police, who told me that the problem was with Shell” .

“As I said before now, our boys are still under the tree, there are no teachers, you go to our schools in the Niger-Delta, where there should be 20 teachers; you have only five teachers and there are no desks.

What are we doing, Shell will say they have been building classrooms, Chevron will say they have been building health centres, where are they?

Are they functioning? We have been deceived enough and the people of the Niger-Delta cannot take this nonsenseâ , he said.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200806050012.html

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.