Communities in Nigeria Oil Producing states has berated the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, HMSPR, Chief Timipre Sylva, over comments credited to him that the “Host Communities can not have more than 3 per cent because it would scare away investors.” Reacting to the claims by Sylva, National Technical Chairman HOSTCOM, High Chief George Bucknor, said that the Minister is economical with the truth to justify the reduction of the demand for 10 per cent equity stake holding in the 2021 PIB. While highlighting the factors militating against investors in the oil and gas industry, HOSTCOM, said that IOC’s divestment and indigenisation of the industry had already started in 2006 before the passage of the 2021 PIB.
His words: “One would have thought that as a son of the soil he would have been desirous to appeal to the Host Communities with 5 per cent Equity stake holding from Upstream, 5% from midstream and 5% from downstream with the Niger Delta Region would have in any case looked inwards and considered the options. It is unfair and grossly hypocritical as a son of the region to say that the Host Communities can’t have more than 3% because it would scare away investors. There are many questions begging for answers: Is it the appropriated funds to Host Communities or the regulatory uncertainties that has scared investors before the passage of the 2021 PIB? However, lets draw the attention of the Minister of State to the memory lane that insecurity, regulatory uncertainties, Industry divestment, indigenisation, climate change challenges and the new world order of transiting from fossil fuel to clean and renewal energy for a better greener environment is some of the factors that led to the changing of their portfolios.
“Government cannot send an operating company to a Host Community without guaranteeing the safety of their investment/facilities. The future of the Host Communities livelihood and environment is uncertain, if the President assents to the 2021 PIB in consideration to the severe environmental degradation and ecosystem desecration without any mitigation and remediation strategies put in place to return the environment to its original state with the present state of the 2021 PIB the Host Communities would be perpetually enslaved in their ancestral homes. More vexatious is the environmental mitigation and remediation payments including the gas flare penalty funds payments to the midstream infrastructure fund and to the Government is unacceptable.
“The Minister of State for Petroleum of this great country averred that 10 per cent equity stake holding to the Host Communities would scare the investors. This is the greatest lies from the pit of hell. Does this justify the purported 3 per cent OPEX payment to the Host Communities computed only from the upstream operations with the exemption of the midstream and the downstream operations; which is more dangerous and devastating to the Host Communities, environment, surface and the underground waters and the ecosystems.”
