HOSTCOM
HOSTCOM says oil companies owe about 1trn. The Host Communities Producing Oil and Gas Association voiced concern that two years after the Petroleum Industry Act 2021 went into force, host communities in the Niger Delta had yet to profit from the 3% of oil companies’ operational costs mandated by the law.
The National President of HOSTCOM, Benjamin Tamaramiebi, stated this during a press conference in Yenagoa, the capital of Bayelsa State, in response to media reports claiming that host communities were opposed to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission becoming involved in the day-to-day management of the trust fund.
In August 2021, former President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Petroleum Industry Bill into law.
The PIA establishes the legal, governance, regulatory, and fiscal framework for the Nigerian petroleum industry, as well as for the development of host communities.
The PIA-created host community trust fund was intended to be managed by the oil and gas firms in partnership with the host communities.
Tamaramiebi bemoaned the fact that oil companies operating in the Niger Delta had not deposited 3% of their annual production costs to the trust fund as required by law.
He claimed that the cumulative unremitted 3% amounted to N1 trillion.
He said, “It is sad to say that after two years of the enactment of the PIA in 2021, the operating companies failed to provide the meagre three per cent of their annual production cost to the host communities.
“What is the fate of the communities at the moment? From my assessment, from 2021 till date, over N1 trillion, if converted from $500 per year, which is about $1 billion, is owed to the host community development trust fund.
“This is what is supposed to come into the host community development. But that has been denied the communities.”
Tamaramiebi complained that all global Memorandum of Understanding and the MoU that the oil firms used to sign with host communities through cluster development boards had been through cluster development boards had been suspended and attention shifted to the PIA.
“However, due to the PIA, the GMoUs and MoUs were suspended.” These documents were used by the firms to build host communities by organizing villages into clusters of development boards.
“They gave the communities peanuts for cluster projects with these.” “All such were suspended with the signing of the PIB into law, and they were asked to implement the provisions of the law,” he stated.
The HOSTCOM leader, however, explained that the NUPRC was not involved in the management of the host community development trust fund, stressing that the commission’s involvement was in regulatory