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Trans-Niger Pipelines (TNP), host communities of Obio/Akpor, Emohua and Ikwerre Local Government Areas of Rivers State have commended the management of an oil and gas firm, Pipeline Infrastructure Nigeria Ltd (PINL) for reaching out to them with palliatives and medical out reach during this Yuletide season.
The communities gave the commendation during the distribution exercise of the Palliatives and medical outreach for no fewer than 35 communities which cut across the three LGAs held at the Emohua Council Secretariat.
Visibly elated, the people described the initiatives as rare, noting that companies fdoing reach out to communities the way PINL has been doing are hardly found.
Chief Solomon Wejinya, Community Development Committee (CDC) Chairman of Ibaa Community, who spoke on behalf of the Communities noted that aside the palliatives, the company had been regularly engaging with the communities and carrying out empowerment for the community youths and women.
He opined that if other companies had engaged hosts communities the way PINL had been doing there would not have been any disagreement between them and oil firms.
He said: “We want to thank this company. They’re a surprise to us. We’ve been having stakeholders meeting and they’ve also gone further by arranging scholarship programmes for our people and empowering our women.
”If it has been like this before, I don’t think anybody will have any problem with any oil company or there facilities operating in this area. The company has been so transparent in their operations”.
He assured PINL of continues partnership in securing the TNP adding that: “We want to tell you that we are on your side.
“The communities of Emohua are very vigilant and I don’t think there will be any vandalism. We’re assuring the company that we’ll protect the facilities on our land”.
Earlier, General Manager, Community Relations and Stakeholders Engagement of PINL, Dr. Akpos Mezeh while handing out the palliatives said the gesture was their own way of appreciating the communities for their support in ensuring that the TNP was safe and producing maximally.
He said: “We want to appreciate you for the good job you have been doing to ensure that our pipelines are safe and there is no better way to say thank you than doing this.
”We’re here not only to provide food items, we’re also here with our medical team”.
Dr. Mezeh thanked the council chairman of Emohua and the various councils for their support, and their partners in the exercise, ‘Learn and Leadwise Resources’ for the collaboration.
He used the medium to appeal to youths of the respective communities to continue to cooperate with the company to ensure that the pipelines remain free from infractions.
”We also want to use this opportunity to appeal to our communities to maintain the momentum and ensure that we continue to increase production for the country because that will benefit all of us.
”We all know the environmental impacts of pipeline vandalism, so I urge us to continue to ensure zero-infraction on the Eastern Corridor, ” he added.
