LAGOS — Contrary to widely circulated reports, the Host Community Fund has not been erased from the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB.
fuel-pump A top member of the bill drafting committee, who disclosed this yesterday, said the fund would come in the last of the four new bills to be sent for legislative consideration to govern operations in the petroleum industry.
The member said in a telephone interview with Vanguard, yesterday, that the Host Community Bill would come under the Petroleum Revenue Bill, which would deal with what the government was expected to do with income earned from oil and gas resources.
The source, who had headed one of the petroleum industry regulatory agencies, and who preferred anonymity, said: “When people talk about host community fund, you can’t find it in a governance bill; host community fund is management, not governance.
“I am really surprised at all the reactions over the host community fund. Indeed, they are reacting over nothing, because that portion of the old Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, is in the last of the four bills to be sent to the National Assembly, which we are still working on.
“The Petroleum Industry Governance Bill before the legislators now is one quarter of the bills they will be considering. There are four bills in all, and they include the Fiscal Regime Bill, the Upstream and Midstream Administration Bill; and the last, the Petroleum Revenue Bill.”
He wondered why the host community fund would be lumped under a governance bill, considering that it is related to revenue management issues.
He said: “The Petroleum Governance Bill concerns institutions, the roles of these institutions, the powers to be conferred on these institutions, transparency and accountability issues that will be used to block all the loopholes and leakages in the system.
“This is because the bulk of the problems in the industry today relates to governance issues. As a result, most of what is happening today, whether in NNPC or anywhere, is all due to leakages and poor governance because you don’t have the right people. Some companies are not even being governed properly.
“The Fiscal Regulatory Bill will be a different bill altogether because part of the contentions of the old PIB is the fiscal regime. So it is being separated so that if there will be future amendment, you don’t need to upturn the whole bill, but you take the part that you want to work with.
‘’This is similar with what we did with the Nigerian Content Bill, we yanked it off from the PIB in 2010 to get operations going in that respect, so nobody can say Nigerian Content is no longer there. In fact, the Content Act is undergoing its second review.”
4 bills to be passed in phases
The source also explained that the four bills would be sent in phases to avoid the lacuna created by the omnibus PIB, which the legislators found difficult to pass for many years because of its volume.
He said: “All the other three bills are currently being worked on by various committees, and they will be presented to the National Assembly once we are done with them. So there is no need for the legislators to wait for all the four before they can start deliberating on them.”
As rightly said, the 53-paged Petroleum Industry Governance Bill 2016, obtained by Vanguard, identifies all the institutions that will govern the petroleum industry going forward.
Misunderstanding of Bill
However, negative reactions, even from some legislators, who have not read the bill, have trailed it because of the erroneous belief that the Host Community Fund had been removed from the bill.
The former PIB had proposed some percentage increase for host communities from oil and gas revenues from 10 to 15 per cent, which had drawn criticisms from some sections of the public, particularly the northern part, who felt it was giving undue advantage to the south.
But the benefit was not only meant for the host producing communities but every other community in Nigeria, which hosts one form of oil and gas asset or another.
According to the source, what Nigeria needs at this point in time is unity, adding that experts should be allowed to do their job rather than being distracted with protests.
Don’t open flank of conflict, HOSTCOM warns NASS
Meanwhile, the National Coordinator of Host Communities, Oil and Gas, HOSTCOM, Prince Maikpobi Okareme, yesterday, reiterated the group’s opposition to the new bill, warning that the legislature would only open a new flank of conflict which might be difficult to control.
He said the late President Musa Yar’Adua introduced the concept of 10 percent equity participation of the host communities with a guaranteed minimum of $500 million profit per annum.
Community Development Advocacy Foundation, CODAF, a non-governmental organisation, said the removal of the host communities fund would reawaken crisis in the Niger Delta.
CODAF in a statement by its Executive Director, Mr Richard Benin, said: “The removal of the host communities development fund from the proposed PIGB is not surprising, considering the array of vested interests and corrupt practices for which the petroleum sector in Nigeria has been notoriously known.’’
Also, former NUPENG General-Secretary, Chief Frank Kokori, on his part, said: “For now, I think it’s still a speculation till it’s laid bare before the National Assembly for it to be debated and then we can know how the issue goes.
‘’The issue on ground is what have the governors of the Niger Delta states done with the 13 percent derivation that they have been collecting over the years?”
