By George Onah
Port Harcourt—No fewer than 50 students from nine cluster communities of Greater Port Harcourt, Obio-Akpor Local Government Area, Rivers State, have been offered university scholarships by the Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, as part of the General Memorandum of Understanding, GMoU, with the communities.

Also as part of the understanding, boreholes, electrification projects, drainages, building of two town halls, road constructions have equally been undertaken by Shell in the communities, while microcredit and skill acquisition programmes have been offered to youths of the communities.

According to the breakdown, 57 children were granted scholarship in secondary schools,   73 youths of the area were given money in the microcredit scheme, while 62 others were sponsored in skill acquisition programmes.

At the commissioning of the soft programmes, yesterday, the state government, represented by Commissioner of Local Government and Community Affairs Dr. Tammy Danagogo, said it was impressed by the performance of the oil company in keeping to tenets of the GMoU, which has enhanced peace between the communities and Shell.

On his part, Government and Community Relations Manager – East Mr. Funkakpo C. Fufeyin said the company has “an annual funding mandate of N73.8million in this cluster. SPDC has disbursed the sum of N221.56 million to Greater Port Harcourt development board thus far”.

According to Fufeyin, “the cluster board is successfully using the funds to touch lives”, explaining that as part of the agreement, SPDC provides funds andf offers technical support to the project while the communities choose, plan and drive the projects from design to delivery”

He said the company’s social investment in the Niger Delta dates back to the 1930s and began using the GMoU approach in 2006.  “The overall purpose was to eliminate the inherent weakness in previous social performance strategies and to involve communities in project identification, implementation and management.