By Our Correspondent

Urhobo Staff working in Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC) have called on members of the Host Community Producing Oil and Gas (HOSTCOM), Urhobo Chapter, to properly investigate why the Commission has not lived up to expectation rather than call for the sack of the Managing Director, Chief William Makinde and the three Urhobo representatives in the intervention agency.

This call was made in a statement signed by Com. Darlington Erhijakpor and Com. Benson Ofan, Leader and Member respectively, Urhobo Staff in DESOPADEC in apparent reaction to calls for the resignation of the Managing Director, who incidentally is an Urhobo and three Commissioners on the Board of DESOPADEC representing Urhobo ethnic nation.

The group viewed the position of Urhobo HOSTCOM as sectional saying that the challenges being faced by the Commission were not peculiar to Urhobos alone but all the ethnic groups that makes up the Commission’s mandate area.

According to the staff, “We wish to draw the attention of the general public to the recent protest of HOSTCOM, Urhobo Nation in Government House, Asaba as widely reported where they (Urhobo Hostcom) calls for the removal of the Managing Director of the Commission, Chief Williams Makinde and three Commissioners, Chief Amos Itihwe, Chief Pius Ovbije and Mr. Jonathan Amitaye representing Urhobo Nation.

This protest is misplaced as what is wrong with the Commission is not peculiar to Urhobo nation alone, it’s not sectional rather it is affecting all the ethnic nationality in the Commission’s mandate area.”

The workers added, “a more practical approach we suggest is for HOSTCOM in its entirety is to investigate why DESOPADEC is not performing to expectation or living up to its billing, we are calling for concerted efforts to correct whatever anomalies that is preventing the Commission from performing statutory responsibility to Oil producing Communities.”

It would be recalled that DESOPADEC has been under attacks by its staff recently over unpaid allowances and other benefits, a situation that led the Management of the interventionist agency to shut down operation for some days. It has however, reopened after talks with aggrieved staff.