Until Nigeria’s Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) was implemented, communities did not get any significant benefits from their natural resources, the Executive Director Spaces for Change (S4C), Victoria Ibezim-Ohaeri, has disclosed.
The Executive Director disclosed this at the just-concluded two-day National Extractives Dialogue, NED2023, Host Community Development Trusts, held in Owerri, Imo State.
Themed: “Catalysts for Equitable Benefit-Sharing and Sustainable Prosperity for All”, Ibezim-Ohaeri pointed out several communities in Nigeria are endowed with mineral resources, but begged for a share of the cake baked from the natural resource endowments from mother earth
She stated: “In these communities, the earth bequeaths massive treasures—gold, ore, tin, limestone, lead, zinc, barite, coal, copper, crude, diamond, crude oil and natural gas—that promise prosperity beyond imagination. For several years, these communities have watched as towering rigs and other mechanical installations rose like giants on their horizon; as pipelines transporting mineral resources crisscrossed their fields, and as trucks laden with crude extracted from their backyard rumbled through their streets.
“Native lands, forests, mangroves, trees, rivers and traditional livelihoods shivered under the heavy might of mineral resource extraction while communities raged and begged for a share of the cake baked from the natural resource endowments from mother earth.”
The executive director, who noted the impact of PIA, stated: “Not too long ago, transformation knocked gently on the door, in response to the yearnings of local people. The Nigerian government signed into law the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) in August 2021. Chapter 3 of that Act offered a beacon of hope by demanding the creation of the Host Community Development Trusts (HCDTs). Under Section 240 of the Act, the benefits of natural resources must now flow back to the communities where they came from.
“Extractive corporations—whether indigenous or international—are now required to contribute 3 per cent of their actual operating expenditure to the Host Community Development Trusts. With a promise to accelerate the economic and social development of communities in the petroleum-producing areas, the Act made new arrangements for fostering sustainable prosperity within the host communities; providing direct social and economic benefits from petroleum operations to the host communities; and determined to enhance peaceful and harmonious co-existence between extractive corporations and their host communities.”
She said the new arrangements meant that the host communities now have the right to benefit from natural resources tapped from their backyard.
These benefits, according to her, were no longer acts of corporate benevolence but an entitlement to partake in the design, content, and structure of their own development and, most importantly, participate in the governance and administration of petroleum resources through their membership of either the Board of Trustees, the Management Committees or any of the advisory bodies created under the Act.
“The failure of a company to comply with these requirements is a ground for revocation of National Extractives Dialogue, NED2023, Host Community Development Trusts: Catalysts for Equitable Benefit-Sharing and Sustainable Prosperity for All their License or Lease.
“As if these assurances are not enough, the PIA gave birth to the Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), entrusted with overseeing the implementation of HCDTs.
“The PIA has simply created the right of host communities to benefit from natural resources. It means that host communities have moved away from an era of charitable developmental assistance to a new era of entitlements and human rights,” she said.
To give life to these promises, she explained that Spaces for Change
has consistently monitored policy implementation at the grassroots, generated knowledge products, shared information, and engaged most of the host communities to empower, sensitize and channel their concerns to the appropriate target agencies and corporations.
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