By Christiana Ekpa
The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has issued a seven-day ultimatum to the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) to appear before it and answer questions over audit queries involving more than N400 billion in the 2021 and 2024 reports of the Auditor-General of the Federation.
The ultimatum was issued at a public hearing of the committee on Monday following HYPREP’s failure to honour four previous invitations to appear before the lawmakers.
Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Bamidele Salam, said the latest invitation was a final warning, directing the Programme Coordinator of HYPREP to appear before the committee on or before Monday, October 12, 2026.
Salam warned that failure to appear would compel the House to invoke its constitutional powers to compel the agency’s accounting officer to appear before the committee.
The committee also extended the invitation to the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Ogoni Remediation Trust Fund.
According to the audit reports presented before the committee, HYPREP failed to submit its audited accounts to the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation between 2017 and 2021.
Among the queries raised were the alleged irregular award of contracts and non-deduction of statutory taxes amounting to $2.1 million; payment of N986 million for consultancy services without evidence of execution; irregular payment of N315 million for training; and N7.2 billion paid for poorly executed contracts.
The agency was also queried over N268 million paid without prepayment audit, non-deduction of N32 million in statutory taxes, and engagement of external solicitors at a cost of N31.8 million without approval from the Attorney-General of the Federation.
Other issues included alleged recovery of crude oil from remediation sites without documentation, adoption of a progressive salary scale for contract staff, and extra-budgetary expenditure of N931 million.
The committee further queried the duplication of services through contracts worth N182 million, duplication of monitoring and evaluation functions valued at N507 million, and an alleged irregular payment of N43 million for advertisement without evidence of performance.
The 2024 Audit Report also raised questions over an unverified N1.5 billion compensation payment, non-retirement of N14 million in cash advances, irregular payment of N229.1 million, and N260 million spent on a training programme without evidence of execution.
The committee also raised concerns over the denial of access to project documents and records valued at N27.5 billion.
Salam said the committee would further question HYPREP and the Ogoni Remediation Trust Fund over the management of the $1 billion reportedly contributed for the Ogoni cleanup following the exit of Shell Petroleum Development Company from the area.
He said the committee would particularly seek clarification on claims that Renaissance Energy Ltd. contributed more than $900 million to the fund.
The lawmakers said HYPREP’s appearance would provide an opportunity for the agency to respond to the audit queries and account for funds committed to the long-running Ogoni environmental remediation programme.
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