Delta deputy Gov. Kingsley Otuaro
WARRI- Delta State deputy governor Barr, Kingsley Otuaro Burutu has urged multinational oil companies to obey directives given by the vice president, Yemi Osinbajo to relocate their headquarters to Niger Delta as part of effort to restoring an enduring peace in Niger Delta.
The deputy governor made this available to newsmen at Governor’s office annex Warri today (Monday) while reading a communiqué issued at the end of a 2-days conference on securing oil and Gas installations in Delta state (phase 1) held at Ogulagha town hall in Burutu local government area of Delta State last week. He said subsequent community town hall engagement would be held in different parts of oil producing communities in the state to educate the locals on the need to protect oil facilities in their localities.
The deputy governor who doubled as the chairman Delta State advocacy committee, for sustaining peace building and potentials and surveillance of oil and Gas through community engagement, said ‘‘ In line with the directive by the vice President. Professor Yemi Osinbajo, conference called on all international oil companies to relocate their headquarters to the Niger Delta without further delay’’
He decried the situation where international oil companies operating in the Niger Delta have their headquarters outside the region, thus denying the states in the Niger Delta in taxes and royalty due to them.
The Delta State Deputy Governor decried the non-employment policy of qualified persons in the Oil Producing Communities by the International Oil Companies.
Otuaro said, “A look at the International Oil Companies employments from 2005-till date shows greater majority/presence of their staff are employed from non-Oil Producing Areas especially the Yoruba/Igbo axis.”
Otuaro called on all relevant authorities to urgently correct the gross imbalance.
“To correct the gross imbalance and near total absence of oil bearing indigenes in the employ of International Oil Companies, Conscientious efforts should be made to directly employ qualified indigenes from the oil bearing communities.”
Otuaro also called for the abrogation of the Oil Pipelines Act of 1959,Oil Terminal Dues Act of 1965, Petroleum Act of 1963, Land Use Act 1978, Associated Gas Reinjection Act 1979 and the Land(Title Vesting) Act of 1993 stressing that such laws confer total monopoly of ownership of Oil and Gas on the Federal Government to the exclusion of the host communities.
He noted that the above laws create a major gap between Oil Companies and host communities pointing that such completely alienate host communities from being part owners of commodities buried beneath their lands.
