Oil-producing communities wants PIA dropped

Three oil-producing communities in Delta State have called for rejection of Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), saying the implementation will plunge oil companies and their host communities into unnecessary crisis.

Chairman of Umusam Community Development Committee in Ndokwa West Council of the state, Mr. Basil Onyemeh, kicked against the Act at a one-day workshop organised by CODE, a civil society organisation in collaboration with OXFAM, in Asaba, the state capital.

Onyemeh, at the seminar attended by participants from three host communities: Umusam, Isumpe and Obodougwu in Kwale, said: “The three per cent is a slap on host communities because it is not even enough to carry out meaningful development in our communities.”

He said: “Before PIA, which I believe came to wipe away the already existing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between host communities and oil companies, we were benefiting from the oil companies maximally. The Act is a minus to us because it stands against peace and development of host communities.”

The CDC chairman said the alternative would be for the Act to run on gross production instead of running on operational cost, noting that if it is on operational cost, none of the oil companies would be ready to tell what is produced daily.

The Community Engagement Intern of CODE, Mr. Kingsley Uchenna Agu, who took participants through “Follow the Money”, said the essence of the workshop was to build capacity of Deltans to use Follow the Money Model to track projects executed by governments in their communities.