Abuja—The member representing Southern Ijaw Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Hon. Preye Oseke has weighed in on the recent debate about some clauses in the recently passed Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).
In a post the Rep member made on his official Facebook page, he said,
“I Preye Oseke is from Ogboinbiri community in Southern ijaw, Bayelsa State. My community is singularly the host to the biggest production oil and gas facility in Bayelsa State and the only government project in my community is a headmasters residential two bedroom building, having in mind the 13% derivation that is coming to my State, and the 3% IOCs contribution to NDDC, yet our people are living in penury.”
He pointed out that if the PIB fails, host communities will be further impoverished.
“To the realities, if this PIB fails, we as host communities (communities hosting production assets) will go back to the already existing impoverishment by our own people.
“Oil and gas communities are classified as host (production assets host communities) and impacted or transit communities (pipeline and manifold ancillary assets host communities), which is captured in the interpretation part of the bill.”
According to him, “The nutty frontier issue is also being misunderstood to mean the North alone, which in itself is not correct. Frontier simply means, new areas within the entire Nigeria where all and gas exploration has not been done and the already known frontiers have three in the south (Anambra Basin, the Calabar trough, the Benue trough that runs to the south) and three others in the North.
“As to the 30% of NNPC profit on oil and gas,..this is a speculative income, because there is no guarantee that every year, profit will be made by the company, and its applications and deployment will be determined by technical geological findings which must reflect viability of exploration. Again this can be challenged at any time, when there seems to be a lopsided application.
“As to the 3%/5% operations cost to host communities, there is complete certainty to this, because is represents a known percentage of the totality in the amount of money every operator(IOC) is to expend in a year. Frontier fund is subject to availability of profit in a year, this not the case for host communities.
“As to the issue of host and impacted communities, before the commencement of any oil and gas exploration activities, IOCs conduct land survey which determines the extent of land to be used and the owners of that particular land…and the type of asset to be installed in the land is clearly known, whether its a production asset or a pipeline, giving the IOCs a clear knowledge of who owns which land and which category a community belongs.
“These are clearly indicated in the acquisition documents signed between the companies and the landlords, on the loss of surface use compensation receipts.
“There are no ambiguities in the bill, we are the ones twisting it to reflect our own realities. This is my submission.”
The social media has been awash with a debate about alleged irregularities in the recently passed PIB by both chambers of the National Assembly.
