The Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives has given the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project a seven-day ultimatum to appear before it and provide answers over audit queries involving more than N400bn in the management of funds for the Ogoni cleanup.
The House Committee handed down the ultimatum following HYPREP’s failure to honour four previous invitations bordering on the subject as HYPREP is required to explain issues raised in the 2021 and 2024 audit reports of the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation.
At a public hearing of the committee on Monday, October 5, 2027, Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Bamidele Salam, emphasized that the latest invitation would be the final opportunity for the project coordinator to appear before the lawmakers.
Salam subsequently warned that should HYPREP failed to appear by Monday, October 12, 2026, the ultimatum’s deadline, the House would invoke its constitutional powers to compel the appearance of the agency’s accounting officer.
“This is the final warning. We have invited HYPREP on four different occasions, and they have failed to appear before this committee,” Salam stressed.
He emphasized that the committee was determined to establish how public funds appropriated for the remediation of polluted Ogoniland were spent and obtain explanations on the numerous queries contained in the Auditor-General’s reports.
Those expected to appear before the committee include the Project Coordinator of HYPREP, Nenibarini Zabbey, and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Ogoni Remediation Trust Fund, who is expected to address Issues relating to the management of the fund.
One of the salient issues calling for explanation before the committee as contained in the audit reports is HYPREP’s failure to submit its audited accounts to the Office of the Auditor-General between 2017 and 2021.
Again, the report further queried other concerns such as the payment of N7.2bn for poorly executed contracts, N268m without prepayment audit and non-deduction of statutory taxes amounting to N32m.
There is the question of how the engagement of external solicitors at a cost of N31.8m was done without approval from the Attorney-General of the Federation; why the recovery of crude oil from remediation sites was handled without proper documentation; why a progressive salary scale for contract staff was adopted; and how an extra-budgetary expenditure of N931m was managed.
Meanwhile, it is reported that the Auditor-General had also raised concerns over alleged duplication of services through contracts valued at N182m and duplication of monitoring and evaluation functions involving N507m.
The audit report further contained an alleged irregular payment of N43m for advertisement without evidence of performance and the continued stay in office of an officer after the expiration of his duty.
Another question related to an unverified payment of N1.5bn as compensation in the 2024 audit report, non-retirement of N14m in cash advances and an irregular payment of N229.1m, including the payment of N260m for a training programme without evidence of execution.
There are several queries the committee is expected to present to the HYPREP representative, including a major concern relating to the “alleged denial of access to N27.5bn worth of project documents and records required for audit verification.”
It is worthy of note that HYPREP had received substantial public funding and other contributions since its inception, but the issue of transparency and accountability in the management of the cleanup funds has been questionable.
