Contempt: Tribunal threatens bench warrant, summons Shell, Chevron Directors
Taiwo Owoeye
For allegedly violating a court order, the Bayelsa State Physical Planning Tribunal in Yenagoa has summoned the Directors of Shell Petroleum Development Company, (SPDC) and Chevron Nigeria Limited to appear before it on Monday, June 30 2016, over an alleged violation of the Court order.
The Tribunal has therefore threatened to seek bench warrant if the representatives of the two multinational oil companies fail to appear.
It was learnt on Wednesday that their summon sequel to the failure of the companies to comply with the eviction order as granted by Yenagoa High Court in April, 2016.
The Bayelsa state government had in a petition before the court accused SPDC of building Gbarain/Ubie Integrated Oil and Gas facility without official permit otherwise known as development permit.
Delivering his ruling on the petition, the Court granted the state government leave to effect the eviction of the SPDC and all occupants of the premises to enable the physical Planning Board conduct environmental, health, technical integrity and safety checks on the facility.
Also, the court directed the Commissioner of Police, the Commander of the Joint Task Force, (JTF) to facilitate the enforcement of the eviction order.
However, the SPDC in defiance to this order refused the government entry into the premises to carry out the inspection as required by law.
The Gbarain/Ubie facility was developed by SPDC on a two million square metres of land, (more than half of Lagos Island) in Bayelsa state without a development permit contrary to the provisions of the law and commissioned in 2010 despite subsisting stop work order and notice to discontinue the development without the permit.
