Don’t pay 13% derivation directly to oil communities, families warn
WARRI—Association of Families of Oil and Gas Producing Communities, ASFOGAPCOM, yesterday, in Warri, Delta State, warned that in order to avoid crisis, neither the 13 per cent derivation fund nor the proposed 10 per cent, advocated for oil-bearing communities in the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, should be paid directly to the host communities, without the landowners.
Addressing reporters in Ekpan, on issues affecting oil and gas landowners in the Niger Delta, President of the group, Mr. Joseph Abinogun, said: “Recently, some groups have been agitating for the stoppage of payment of the 13 per cent derivation fund to governments of oil producing states on the ground that the fund was exclusively meant for oil and gas producing communities and should be paid to them only.
*Warri town
“For pecuniary reasons, community leaders in the region are already salivating in anticipation of the billions of naira that would accrue to host communities from the 10 per cent Petroleum Host Community, PHC, fund by the Federal Government. This has further fuelled avarice of many community leaders who now consider oil and gas landowners a threat to their ambition and an opposition that must be crushed or muffled at all costs.
The position of ASFOGAPCOM on these issues is simple. The Federal Government should set up a reliable administrative body, which must comprise all stakeholders, especially oil and gas landowners, for the judicious disbursement and management of the fund. It will generate unprecedented crisis if the fund is paid to host communities without the landowners in proportionate representation in the administrative body.”
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