Ogoni cleanup: HYPREP to engage foreign partners, transfer technology to local communities

By Pius Dukor

As the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) set to clean up the complex sites in Ogoniland, the Project Coordinator of HYPREP, Nenibarini Zabbey, a professor, has said that the cleanup would transfer technology to local communities and that they would engage foreign partners on the cleanup.

Zabbey dropped the hint during an interview with journalists on the inspection of some complex sites in Eleme Local Government of Rivers State with the proposed foreign partners.

The HYPREP Coordinator maintained that transfer of technology to the local communities working during the cleanup was a legacy that would stand the test of time and would also empower the youth to take up the cleanup jobs in the near future. He explained that the visit by the foreign partners was to conduct physical research on how the partners can use their wealth of experience to clean up the complex sites in the Ogoni which will include remediation without disturbing the villagers.

The HYPREP boss said that the Minister of Environment, with the HYPREP team, was engaging the foreign partners to give the best of clean up that is done in other parts of the world as a right to the Ogoni people since there is high risk complex sites and there would be less disturbance because it is a residential area.

“HYPREP has identified a lot of companies including this one and they will use mix technology in the cleanup,” he said.

He further explained that currently, the company is doing site investigation and scoping of the environment.

On the advice to the Ogoni communities, he said their eyes are on the ball “as we promised them and there will be technology transfer after the whole exercise. We need proper investigation and the extent of the damage done to our environment.”

In an interview shortly after the inspection, the Team Lead of the foreign partners, Jan Haemers of Haemers Technologies told journalists that the company would use the best technology to clean up Ogoni, especially now that the underground water is contaminated with oil.

Haemers however, said that their innovative ideas and expertise would bring the desired result to clean up, noting that they have done a lot of clean up contracts in both Africa and Europe such as Congo, Southern Sudan, China and Singapore where there are oil contaminations.

“We will develop technology where most of the jobs will be done by the local people. I am here to bring remediation technology and this job will take time,” he explained.

Answering question on when to start the remediation proper, he told journalists that the company would do concrete work with characterised remediation and investigation of the soil, among others.

“We need to set partnership with HYPREP,” he said.