PIA: N’Delta Activist Insists 3% Fund be Managed by HCTF as Specified by Act

A Niger Delta based activist and National Coordinator of Center for Peace and Environmental Justice (CEPEJ) Chief Sheriff Mulade has called on the federal government to establish and inaugurate the Host Community Trust Fund (HCTF) provided for by the PIA, to manage the Petroleum Industry Fund.

Mulade in a chat with Journalists maintained that the 3 per cent fund, if properly managed by HCTF, will address environmental and infrastructural issues affecting the oil and gas Producing host communities in the country.

The environmental activist condemned the idea being muted in some quarters that the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs or the Governors of oil and gas producing States should control and manage the 3 per cent allocation provided for in the PIA, based on the oil and gas resources derived from, and the degradation effects of oil activities in the host communities.

He warned that if the Minister or State Governors control the 3 per cent fund, it might be mismanaged the same way the 13% derivation fund allocated to oil and gas producing States for the development of oil and gas host communities, was misappropriated.

Mulade recalled that the 13 per cent oil derivation fund, and the PIA fund are meant to address the environmental, ecological and infrastructural development issues of oil communities insisting that the 3 per cent PIA fund should be managed by the Host Community Trust Fund as stipulated by Section 2 of the PIA.