The Presidency on Tuesday said the ground-breaking of the proposed modular refineries might start next month.
The Senior Special Assistant to the Acting President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, disclosed this in an interview with State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said there would be a meeting between Acting President Yemi Osinbajo and representatives of the Pan-Niger Delta Forum next week.
Akande recalled that last November, President Muhammadu Buhari held a meeting with the leaders of PANDEF where issues of Niger Delta development was discussed.
He said the Acting President’s visits to the states of the Niger Delta was a fallout of the meeting with the President.
He noted that after the meeting, the President directed that an inter-ministerial committee led by Osinbajo be constituted to look at all the issues, using the PANDEF demand as the take off point.
Akande said, “That inter-ministerial committee has been meeting virtually every week and next week, there is going to be a report from the government side.
“Some of the issues to be discussed at the meeting include, for instance, the issue of modular refineries, which we hope that starting from August, there will be ground-breaking for the first set of modular refineries.
He added, “Regarding Ogoniland clean-up, they are also going to give an update of what has been happening.
“For instance, the coordinating team that was set up for the Ogoni clean-up conducted health impact assessment; they have done salt test and water test; they have hired a number of sons and daughters of Ogoniland, who are trained in environmental sciences as technical assistants. I think about 15 of them.”
