By: Vitalis Ugoh, Calabar
The Deputy Governor of Cross River State Rt. Hon. Peter Odey, has advised representatives of Ayib Eku Oil Palm Limited and the five host communities of Akamkpa local government area to go and resolve their differences and report back to government to end the over 10 years clash between the company and the communities.
Addressing leaders from the five host communities (Okarara, Iku, Abung, Akor and New Ndebiji) in the meeting, Rt. Hon. Odey advised the company not to release any money yet. Let the landlord communities meet and agree on the sharing formula and sign.
According to him, “there should be an agreement so that if any of the party is in breach of what has been agreed, then the law will take its cause”.
Hon. Odey directed the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Crop & Irrigation Development to facilitate a meeting with representatives of the host communities to enable them agree on a fair and acceptable sharing formula for the money received from the company.
He urged the representatives of the five host communities to complete discussions and return with a signed document by all stakeholders.
The directive becamr necessary because both the company and the community needed to be happy at the end of the day stating that “a company that is paying hundreds of millions to both the government and communities should be allowed an enabling environment to operate and make profit”.
Speaking earlier, the Chairman of the Board of Ayibeku Palm Oil Ltd, Mr. John Gaul Lebo, who was accompanied to the meeting by the Managing Director of the Company, and other key management staff, praised the proactive approach of the Prince Otu-Led administration which had brought to an end the disagreement between the company and the host communities.
Lebo disclosed that the company had prepared bank drafts in the value of N108,000,000 for the host communities and hoped that the impasse that had kept the company from making profits for so many years will be put to rest immediately so that the community will begin talking more about more important development of social infrastructure like building roads and schools rather than ground rents.
Responding to a question from the New Ndebiji community about equity in the distribution of the money received from the company, Mr. Lebo said the company was allocating funds going to the communities based on the land holding as described in the map that the Federal Government had given to the company showing rivers and valleys between one community and another.
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He urged the communities to discuss amongst themselves about the boundaries if different from what was contained in the survey plan provided by the Federal Government.
In a prepared address by the Ayib Eku Estate Landlords Joint Council thanked the government for appointing two of their children into cabinet positions in the state and urged for more appointments.
The Joint Landlords called for government’s intervention to ensure that the company begins to actualize the purpose for which it was set up.
The group said the community was still in dire need of infrastructural development despite policy directives by previous administrations to investors and called on the company to examine the Corporate Social Responsibility model of other agro-allied companies in order to perfect the same.
