In what many fear may turn out to be a face-off between the SCD JV and Bonny Kingdom over the salary benchmark for the Train 7 Project of the Nigeria LNG, the Bonny Kingdom Local Content Compliance Committee (BKLCCC) has accused the SCD JV (Saipem, Chiyoda and Daewoo Joint Venture) of disregarding the proposed N336,000 set by the committee in consonance with the labour unions on the Train 7 project.

Chairman of BKLCCC, Opuada Willie-Pepple, who stated this in an interview with Kristina Reports on Wednesday, May 11, 2022, disclosed that his committee communicated the new benchmark to the various multinationals in Bonny Island ahead of their negotiations with the various labour unions but they chose to neglect and disregard it.

“The Communique on the baseline salary of N336, 000 was forwarded to Saipem and Daewoo Unions, SCD-JV and the other multinationals on the Island for immediate consideration during their salary negotiations with the various Unions.  

The mail got to them a week before they had their salary negotiations. And both the leadership of the Unions and the Companies neglected and disregarded BKLCCC recommendation of N336,000 and did whatever they did.”  

In a press release issued after its meeting with representatives of the NLNG and SCD JV, and signed by its Chairman, Opuada Willie-Pepple, and Secretary, Helen Pepple, the BKLCCC gave the consortium, its client, NLNG, and the various labour unions a seven-day ultimatum to quickly review the salary scale in line with the proposed new benchmark to prevent avoidable crisis in the island LGA.

“In view of the above, BKLCCC directed SCD-JV as the consortium and NLNG Ltd to immediately convene a meeting between the SCD-JV management and the workers unions for an upward review of salaries and allowances of workers and its implementation within 7 working days in line with our aforesaid proposed salary baseline of N336,000.00 (Three Hundred and Thirty Six Thousand Naira) to sustain a peaceful operating environment on the Island.”

Checks by Kristina Reports indicate that the cost of living has skyrocketed since the onset of the Train 7 project with cost of foodstuffs escalating to about 300%, same with transportation, accommodation and other essentials.

At the moment, a one room self-contained apartment that went for between N70,000 to N120,000 now goes for as high N250,000 to N300,000 depending on location and quality of property. Commercial motorcyclists, popularly known as Okada riders, have jacked up their fares from N50 a drop to between N100 and N150 for short distances; and NN200 to N500 for long distances depending on your destination.

A visit to the Bonny Main Market and the waterfronts where traders buy from fisher folks and resell to consumers, Kristina Reports discovered that a racket of fish that initially goes for N1,000 is now between N2,500 and N4,000. This price hike affects fishes such as croaker, barracuda, mallet, bonga, tilapia, catfish, among others.

One of the fish sellers, who preferred not to be named, told Kristina Reports that “you know that so many people have come into the town because of train 7 and the demand is high now. We have to make our profit but more seriously is that we can’t even satisfy the high demand”.

The BKLCCC also frowned at the selective employment saga in the area, warning the affected companies to synergize with relevant stakeholders to address the issue and avail indigenes and residents of the island employment opportunities, pointing out that “it is to their own advantage for the people, especially, the youths to be employed. Would they be able to contain the fallout of having several young people unemployed in a community like this?”

The press release informed that representatives of SCD-JV and NLNG “profusely thanked the Bonny Chiefs’ Council for their swift intervention in arresting and containing the crisis. They also appreciated the leadership of Bonny Youth Federation and the entire youths of Bonny Kingdom for heeding to the advice of the traditional institution and allowing peace to reign”.

On his part, the Leader of the Bonny Youths Federation (BYF), Emmanuel Finecountry praised the SCD JV and NLNG for the swift response to the invitation of the BKLCCC and their cooperation with relevant stakeholders to quickly address the teething issues affecting the train 7 project, stressing that “as  peaceful kingdom, we appreciate every atom of development coming to our kingdom but we also want the right thing to be done and the inherent opportunities to get to our people, especially, the youths”.  

Recall that Bonny Island was engulfed in a protest over the selective employment and non-implementation of the new salary benchmark on Saturday, May 7, 2022 as workers were blocked from accessing their various work sites by the protesters who blocked the Willbros Junction of the Finima Road.

The Bonny Kingdom Professionals and Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), organizers of the protest, in various interviews with Kristina Reports Security Correspondent, Susan Pepple, bemoaned the situation where workers in the island were underpaid in comparison to their colleagues in other places.