Oil and gas host communities in Rivers State have flayed oil firms operating in their areas for shunning a negotiation town hall meeting organised by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) in conjunction with HOSTCOM Project Management and Adversary Consult Limited. The town hall meeting, themed “Host Communities Development Board Trustees (HCDTS) and Settlors in Rivers State 2024, which held in Port Harcourt on Friday was an avenue for the host communities to peacefully ventilate their grievances for the settlors to note and address accordingly as prescribed by the Petroleum Industry act, 2021. However, despite invitation extended the oil companies in the PIA implementation, none of the settlor showed up for the strategic meeting. The National President of Host Communities of Nigeria Producing Oil and Gas, Dr. Benjamin Temaran-Ebi, regretted that none of the companies attended the meeting, explaining that the settlors are supposed to Grace the meeting and engage the host communities in dialogue to engender peaceful coexistence in the communities.
Temaran-Ebi said “it is quite pathetic and annoying when a husband who is supposed to protect the household decides to back out, it is best known to them, but I believe that when a husband fails to carry out his responsibilities in the family before going out, he will begin to run away from his wife, but by the time he returns, the wife will ask questions, you have not given the feeding money, that is the reason they have backed out. But if the husband knows the implications, he would definitely have redress on the matter, he has to think back to ensure this engagement is not all about war, but to create peace and coexistence because they are operating in our communities and if we move in this way, it is going to result in anarchy and we are appealing passionately to the regulator which is NUPRC to tell them that they should not run away from these engagements because it would be beneficial to them.
“There were a lot of issues that were raised which they would have been here for them to respond to, the accusations against them, so that everyone would have known the facts, it would have been a balanced issue but now everything is on their heads and they are the bad husbands we are having today.” Temaran-Ebi highlighted that the meeting was to ensure inclusive participation of host communities producing oil and gas and to ensure the judicious use of the PIA’s 3% fund that accrue to the communities, He urged host communities not to become provoked by the oil companies and resort to violence, but to always remain law-abiding and peaceful. He said “only peace can bring prosperity, where there is no peace, there is no development, so for that reason we will continue to preach the gospel of peace so that we can have sustainable development. That is the reason why we are working out the platform today with NUPRC, Engineer Gbenga Komolafe who has created this platform to engage with communities, engage with the oil companies, to engage with host communities to ensure peaceful coexistence and boom in the industry so that our production will pick up.”
Meanwhile, a Senior Manager Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Port Harcourt Regional Office, Success Ikpe, said his agency which is responsible for ensuring implementation of the host community development in line with the provisions of the Petroleum Industry act, 2021 would investigate to why the oil companies failed to attend the crucial meeting. Ikpe said “like you can see, actually some of them are here, you may not have seen all of them, but I know it is an ongoing process, so I’m sure in other forms because it’s going to be a continuous one, definitely you will see additional companies attending. For those who didn’t attend, we will find out why they were unable to come. There are criteria we use to know those who have attained reasonable milestones in terms of what we are trying to do.” Ikpe, however, said 47 out of the 113 Host Communities Development Board of Trustees accounts had been fully funded, assuring that community trust accounts that had not yet been funded would be credited in due course.
