Group seeks inclusivity in PIA’s host communities’ fund

• Wants 30 per cent composition for women

Niger Delta Budget Monitoring Group (NDEBUMOG) has lamented the little impact or what is considered measurable infrastructural revival in the oil-producing region, despite previous interventions by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Amnesty Programme, Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, and Niger Delta Basin and Rural Development Authority (NDB&RDA), among others.

This, it noted, is due to a lack of inclusion, pragmatic reconciliations need assessment and exclusion of Niger Delta people, especially, women in such interventions.

NDEBUMOG also alleged that citizens’ inability to demand accountability contributed to the poor democratic returns in the Niger Delta.

It lamented that aggravated environmental pollution caused by decades of oil exploration in the Niger Delta placed an extra burden on sustainable income and livelihood for families in the Niger Delta region, especially, on women, who bear a greater burden for care to their families.

This was contained in a communiqué issued at the end of a one-day capacity-building workshop on women’s economic inclusion through the 30 per cent campaign in the implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), organised by the Niger Delta Budget Monitoring Group (NDEBUMOG), with support from OXFAM in Nigeria held in Port Harcourt.

The meeting was part of NDEBUMOG’s 30 per cent campaign for women’s economic inclusion in the implementation of the three per cent PIA’s Host Communities Fund embarked upon by the organisation with support from Oxfam.

The participants called for the inclusion of women in the implementation of the three per cent PIA’s Host Communities Fund, noting that women are better placed to achieve the objectives of supporting local initiatives through socioeconomic opportunities that the PIA’s Host Communities Fund envisages.

They also called on the government to ensure that women among the host communities are included in all strata to be set up to implement the Host Communities Fund, saying, women equally have the constitutional right to participate in governance.

“Specifically, the government should ensure that appointments into the Trust for the fund and other appointments should consider 30 per cent composition for women. Also, appointment into Host Communities Management Committees should consider 30 per cent composition for women, while capital funds for host communities should be equitably distributed to favour women and men, equitably.”