PIB: Group rejects 3% allocation, demands further review

An organisation under the aegis of Ohaji Initiative Development (ODI), Imo State, has outrightly rejected the 3 per cent allocation to the host community and demanded for a further strategic review of host community content and others in the PIB for the interest of peace and harmony.

The group, in a letter to the Federal Government of Nigeria, endorsed by the general coordinator of the oil community-based organisation, Mr Tony Ogbonna, and made available to the Nigerian Tribune on Thursday in Owerri, regretted that the PIB rolled out after 13 years of incubation is still premature and has shortfalls for judicious utilisation as a legal, regulatory, governance and fiscal framework in the Petroleum Industry in Nigeria. 

Ogbonna pointed out that a general overview of the PIB showed that it is lopsided and self-centred to the Federal Government of Nigeria interest, adding that the bill is a replica and re-occurrence of taxes, fees, charges, levies, penalties, rents, royalties, profit sharing that run like a thread across the pages of the PIB document.

The General Coordinator accused the Federal Government of making the hub of the bill to be about their interest and huge demand from the  E&P Companies, which according to him, had been the rule of the game of  which the FG had enjoyed since 1958 –from the onset of oil & gas exploration and oil production activities in Nigeria.

He regretted that in spite of that, the country “is still like an embryo struggling with infrastructural development and poverty up till this present time”. 

He observed with dismay that the bill failed to cover the operational and legal framework that would sustain the economic survival of other key players in the Petroleum industry and sustainability for Nigerian; the contractors; the servicing companies; community contractors and subcontractors, who contribute to the survival of the energy value chain &  livelihood of the majority of Nigerians, adding that such aspect must not be overlooked at this stage on the Bill.  

Describing the bill as a working document, the general coordinator insisted that it should run from end to end, and must be smart.

Ogbonna maintained that the host community content allocation of 3 per cent on the bill is very poor and unacceptable, adding that the basis for the percentage allocation of 3 per cent to the host community is not technically clarified.

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