BP ‘wasting’ compensation money

Oil giant BP has spent tens of millions of pounds compensating people for the disaster around the gulf.

However Bryon Encalade of the Louisiana Oysterman Association, who is a proxy shareholder in BP, travelled to London today (April 14) to tell fellow investors the company was wasting money.

He said: “We’re here to inform the people this is their money that’s being wasted down there and going to places that we don’t know.

“Because we’re not getting it I can tell you and we need to get that message to the people who fund BP.”

Protesters gather outside London’s Excel before BP’s AGM

Mr Encalade, a lifelong oyster fisherman said his fishing beds were amongst the first to feel the impact from the oil spill, but compensation was still not getting through.

He added: “Now we have fishermen receiving cheques for six months work for $5,000, how can you support a family on that?

“The oysters in our communities they’re dead, the response to the disaster killed most of those oysters.

“We need to understand that they have scientific reports … putting out the message that’s everything’s ok but it’s not, it’s not!”

Luke Walsh