By Davies Iheamnachor
PORT HARCOURT— Major stakeholders in the oil- rich Niger Delta region have asked the Federal Government to approve and institutionalize the community 20 percent equity fund as captured in the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB.

President Buhari

They warned that issues of crude oil theft will continue unabated in the region until the issue of resource control was duly addressed, even as the Head, Centre for Conflict and Gender Studies, University of Port Harcourt, Dr. Fidelis Allen, said crude oil theft and illegal refining had worsened in the area.

The stakeholders noted that if the 20 percent equity fund was approved there would be serious control on the menace of oil theft and illegal refining of petroleum products in the region.

In a 12-point communique issued after a roundtable in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, organised by National Coalition on Gas Flaring and Oil Spill in the Niger Delta, NACGOND, they sought sustainable alternatives to oil theft and illegal refining in the region.

In the communique by Coordinator of NACGOND, Rev. Father Edward Obi, the stakeholders recommended: “That the community 20 percent equity fund in PIB should be approved and institutionalized. The communities are alienated because they feel they are not benefitting from the proceeds of oil.

“There is the need to retrain those currently engaged in oil theft and artisanal refining to diversify their skills for legal refining in partnership with government.”

However, a former President of Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, MOSOP, Prof. Ben Naanen, disclosed that the reason oil theft and illegal refining have become common in the region was because the FG had failed to meet the energy need of the rural people.

Naanen said  the failure of government to acknowledge that energy was basic to man’s daily living has created a huge gap which some youths who are involved in illegal refining have decided to fill.