Reacting to the hiring by the Nigerian oil regulator of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and S&P International to assist scrutinize the sale of Shell’s onshore property within the nation, Isa Sanusi, Amnesty Worldwide Nigeria Director, stated:
“The federal government regulator overseeing Shell’s sale of its onshore property in Nigeria should keep away from any perceived battle of pursuits by making certain and guaranteeing the complete independence of any consultants it makes use of to evaluate Shell’s proposed sale of its property in Nigeria.
“The choice by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Fee to rent BCG, which already performs all kinds of different work for Shell, to assist assess this sale is regarding. It’s equally worrying that S&P International, which additionally performs a key function in ranking Shell’s debt and creditworthiness in addition to offering different providers to the oil firm, can also be concerned.
“Given the large human rights dangers at stake it’s important that critiques of the sale will not be simply unbiased – however seen to be unbiased. Shell must be held fully to account for the oil spills associated to the enterprise it’s promoting, which for many years have polluted the setting, contaminated ingesting water and poisoned agricultural land, fisheries and other people.
“Any assurances from these consultancy teams that their critiques shall be divorced from their wider industrial pursuits with Shell are unlikely to allay worries that they might smooth pedal on the treatments required to handle the human rights abuses associated to Shell’s actions.
“It’s also important that the potential consumers of the enterprise have the flexibility and monetary stability to handle the operations safely and successfully to make sure native communities will not be uncovered to additional harms. The deal should not be allowed to proceed except a sequence of safeguards are in place that absolutely defend folks’s rights.”
Background
Shell introduced in January that it had agreed to promote the Shell Petroleum Growth Firm of Nigeria (SPDC) to the Renaissance consortium, which contains 4 exploration and manufacturing corporations primarily based in Nigeria and a global vitality group, in a deal price as much as US$2.4 billion, financed partly with a mortgage to the consumers from Shell.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Amnesty Worldwide.