PIB: UPU canvasses upward review of host communities funding, commends NASS

THE URHOBO PROGRESS UNION (UPU) Worldwide has commended the 9th National Assembly for breaking the jinx that trailed the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) for 12 years by passing it into law, but called for an “objective and realistic review of funding for the host community trust fund.”

In a statement reacting to the passage of the PIB, Olorogun Moses Taiga, president-general of UPU, said the 9th National Assembly demonstrated the necessary moral, technical and political will in passing the bill.

He expressed delight with Ovie Omo-Agege, deputy senate president, who represents the Urhobo nation in the senate and other senators and house members from the Niger Delta for their role in ensuring the passage of the PIB, noting that in spite any shortcomings that may be observed, the PIB as passed is a good and practical starting point towards effecting changes to the administrative, regulatory and fiscal framework of the Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.

On the funding of the host community trust fund, the UPU president-general called for an objective, realistic and patriotic review of the fund to 10 per cent when both chambers of the National Assembly meet to harmonise their positions on the PIB. Taiga noted that the oil and gas host communities, for many decades, have suffered untold infrastructural neglect, environmental degradation, rights deprivation and other socio-economic ills and it is only fair that the PIB compensates them for the longtime injustices meted out to them by an upward review of the funding before it is signed into law by President Muhammad Buhari.