The Host Communities, Producing Oil and Gas Commission, (Hostcomm), Bayelsa State chapter, has restated their position on the Petroleum Industry Bill before the National Assembly.
Speaking against the backdrop of disquiet on the bill by the state chapter of the organisation, their chairman, Bishop Victor Okorotie, who spoke through the Public Relations Officer, Mr Forcebray Inegha expressed worries over certain provisions of the bill.
He described section 257 subsections (2) and (3) of the bill as completely anti-host communities.
Okorotie harped that the sections were labelling oil producing communities as criminals and vandals.
He alleged that the authors of the bill, deliberately, have tagged the host communities as untrust-worthy, saying the provisions have it that should oil leakage occur in any community, the cost of repair and remediation would be deducted from the percentage of money meant for the host community.
He noted that the bane of Nigeria’s oil industry development was the direct result of decades of neglect of the communities endowed with oil and gas reserves.
According to the group’s chairman, the Petroleum Industry Bill has three major components, which include the petroleum industry governance, petroleum industry fiscal and the host communities’ bills, respectively.
The group’s boss hinted that until such anti-host communities’ sections of the PIB were expunged, no meaningful compromise could be reached between the Federal Government on one side, the multinationals and the host communities, on the other.
“Our major worries in addition to the known dismay on the percentage spelt out by the bill as it were, to the host communities, were that section 257 subsections (2) and (3) have criminalised host communities. What it then means is that all the communities in the state were supporters and the cause of oil infrastructure vandalism”, he said.

By:  Albert Ograka, Asaba