.it’s designed to stoke communal conflicts in oil host communities.
A coalition of civil society organizations in the Niger Delta region of the country on Thursday said that the public hearing organised by the Senate and the House of Representatives on Petroleum Industry Bill PIB is a sham and the bill was designed to stoke conflicts among oil producing communities of the Niger Delta region.
The group also said that the manner the National Assembly has managed the public hearing on the bill would promote environmental impunity in the oil industry and execerbate social dislocation in the oil bearing communities in the region.
This was contained in text of press briefing at the National Assembly organised by the coalition led by Ken Henshaw of the Niger Delta Dialogue and a host other civil society organizations.
The group decried the way and manner both chambers of the apex legislature organised the 2-day heating on the PIB and particularly lamented that members of the oil bearing host communities were denied access to the hearing.
The group leader said that the way in which the apex legislature handled host communities and civil society contributions at the hearing was deliberately aimed at ensuring that these critical stakeholders were denied access to the public hearing hall.
It would be recalled that on Wednesday the first day of the hearing, security personnel of the Sergeant At Arm of the House had turned down many people including journalists, and other invitees at the hall 0.28 venue of the public hearing.
They also expressed serious concerns about the limited number of days and hours that both chambers allocated to the public hearing on the oldest proposed law to govern the oil industry in Nigeria.
The also decried the way the Chairman of the House Ad-hoc Committee on PIB Honey. Tahir Monguno turned down readiness by the representatives of the oil host communities to make presentation at the hearing.
” After dedicating the first day of the hearing to take elaborate presenetation from oil company representatives and government stakeholders, the Chairman of the Committee promised to allow presentation of host communities view the next day.
“Unfortunately, rather than accord, the representatives of oil bearing communities were denied the opportunity to speak and instead asked to ceremoniously hand over copies of their memorandum to the session Chairman” he stated.
The group also lamented that the bill was carefully crafted to ensure that environmental pollution and other ecological concerns of the Niger Delta region were entirely ignored while it focuses morning on production of commercial viability of the oil industry to the federal government.
