Bayelsa communities laud Chevron over relief materials

Community leaders in Bayelsa State under the auspices of the Nigeria National Petroleum Commission (NNPC) and Chevron's Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU) have commended the efforts of the company in providing relief materials and gift items to the people in appreciation of their assistance during the gas rig fire incident that occurred in an offshore location.The Chairmen of 'Keffes and Dodo River Regional Development Committees under the GMOU, Messrs Christopher Tuodor and Berry Negresse gave the commendation in Yenagoa during the inspection and receipt of food items provided by the company for the communities.According to them, the gesture by the NNPC/Chevron Joint Venture was indicative of the company's social responsibility and sensitivity to the needs of the people adding that 'this will go a long way to further strengthen the cordial relationship the company has with the communities'.'Over the years, our communities and NNPC/Chevron have had mutually-beneficial relationship.It is unfortunate that a fire incident occurred on the offshore rig undertaking gas drilling operations for the company. Our people were naturally agitated due to fear of potential threat to human and aquatic lives,' they said.While stressing that the communities' occupation was predominantly fishing, they noted that the concern for potential loss of means of livelihood was also paramount.'We are mostly fishermen and women but we know that what happened was an accident, and because we are good neighbours with NNPC/Chevron, our people volunteered to assist in the rescue and evacuation of the workers on the rig as at the time of the incident,' they stated.The RDC Chairmen commended the NNPC/Chevron Joint Venture for showing appreciation of the people's efforts in assisting the company when it needed support and said they would continue to assist in monitoring the situations until the fire is finally off.Some of the items provided for the communities include bags of rice, garri, beans, tubers of yam and cows. Others include several jerry-cans (25 litres) of groundnut oil, palm oil, frozen fish/chicken, cartons of beverages, cartons of tin tomatoes, bags of salt, and sugar.
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