Chinedum Treasure
Stakeholders and leaders of Oil and Gas Producing Host Communities have expressed confidence on seamless implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) targeted at regulating activities in the region.
The stakeholders made the observation in Awka, Anambra State during a 2-day Capacity Building on Strategic Leadership Skills and Host Communities Provisions in the PIA for Leaders of Oil and Gas Producing Host Communities.
Executive Director, African Centre For Leadership, Strategy and Development, Monday Osasah in his remarks, stressed the need for communities to be sensitized and conscientized so they appreciated their responsibilities in relation to the provision of the law.
According to him, empowering the leaders with strategic leadership skills to mobilize stakeholders and effectively engage with International Oil Companies (IOCs) and other relevant stakeholders was critical to ensuring peaceful coexistence of the communities within the zone.
He acknowledged existence of certain gaps existed in the document, as evident in any other man-made material, but noted that identifying such gaps and subsequent filling would form part of the engagement.
He expressed joy that some leaders of the host communities were already members of the Board of Trustees (BOT) which, he described as one major step of taking ownership of the process as contained in the PIA.
He said, “Today, we have leaders from 5 different states, Imo, Delta, Abia, Ondo and Anambra. There’s needs for these leaders to be brought to speed so as to have seamless negotiations as they engage in multinational oil purposes.
“Our expectation is that the communities will understand the provisions of the law and know what to demand and how to manage it to avert crisis.
“We don’t want what happened in Niger Delta to repeat itself. Hence the need for early preparation of community leaders ahead of implementation of the PIA, especially now the guidelines have been released.
Earlier, Commissioner for Petroleum & Mineral Resources, Barr. Anthony Ifeanya regretted obvious apprehensions within communities following slow implementation of the PIA with regards to the Host Community Trust Fund.
He underscore the place of confidence building between operators, state and host communities, revealing state government plans to make the host communities models through infrastructural development.
Identifying government insensitivity and poor development of oil communities as responsible for restiveness in the area, Ifeanya called for full implementation and PIA and Oil Producing Area Development Commission for sustainable environment.
Also speaking, Civil Society leader, Chris Azor said the project was aimed at ensuring that host Communities benefited from the extractives as enshrined in the PIA.
“n the Host Community Development Trust (HCDT), investors are required to contribute 3% of their operational expenditure to the HCDT, which funds development projects in host communities.
“However, there are required procedures to engage and ensure equity and inclusion in decision making, participation in benefit sharing for sustainable development,” he added.
Appreciating Centre LSD for the humongous effort at deliberate Interventions, Azor called for more of such capacity building trainings going forward.
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