The President-General of Urhobo Progress Union (UPU), Worldwide, Olorogun Moses Taiga, has commended the 9th National Assembly for breaking the jinx trailing the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) by passing it into law, even as he called for an “objective and realistic review of funding for the host community trust fund.”
Reacting to the passage of the PIB, Olorogun Moses Taiga said the 9th National Assembly demonstrated the necessary moral, technical and political will in passing the bill.
He expressed delight with the Deputy President of the Senate, HE Ovie Omo-Agege, who represents the Urhobo Nation in the Senate and other senators and House of Reps members from the Niger Delta for their role in ensuring the passage of the PIB.
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He noted that in spite any shortcomings that may be observed, the PIB as passed is a good and practical starting point towards effecting changes to the administrative, regulatory and fiscal framework of the Nation’s Oil and Gas industry.
On the funding of the host community trust fund, the UPU President-General called for an objective, realistic and patriotic review of the fund to 10 per cent when both chambers of the National Assembly meet to harmonise their positions on the PIB.
Taiga noted that the Oil and Gas host communities, for many decades, have suffered untold infrastructural neglect, environmental degradation, rights deprivation and other socio-economic ills and it is only fair that the PIB compensates them for the long-time injustices meted out to them by an upward review of the funding before it is signed into law by President Muhammad Buhari.
