The Committee said it would not hesitate to deal decisively with any oil firm that failed to respect and honour the investigative panel.
The House of Representatives tripartite Committees investigating the implementation of corporate social responsibility by multinational oil companies and other corporate bodies in the South-South Region of the country have vowed to issue a warrant of arrest on the heads of the companies that failed to honour their invitations.
The chairman of the tripartite Committee Rep. Obiageli Lilian Orogbu (LP, Anambra) frowned at the failure of some of the oil companies to honour the Committee’s investigative hearing in the National Assembly.
Rep. Orogbu warned that she and her co-chairmen as well as the entire members of the Committees would not hesitate to deal decisively with any organization that failed to respect and honour the investigative panel.
In her opening remarks, she emphasized that the essence of the investigative hearing was borne out of the genuine intention of the parliament to see that corporate bodies operating in Nigeria keep to the best practices of corporate and environmental behaviours within their host communities and acknowledged that “reports at the disposal of the parliament showed that a lot of you are lagging in this regard.”
“We want to see a change and also ensure that what you do as a corporate social responsibility to your hosts is commensurate with the level of business you do. Some of you observe corporate social responsibility in other countries you operate but you fail to do the same here because nobody cares.
“We want a new Nigeria and we need you to work together with the government to rebuild this country. I know that some of you are doing quite well but there are many of you that are not responsible enough.”
In the same vein, lawmakers present at the hearing expressed displeasure that the companies that attended the hearing didn’t come with evidence of what they had done for their host communities and for that reason, the meeting was rescheduled for another date which will be communicated to them by the secretariat.
The three Committees involved in the investigative hearing are, the Corporate Social Responsibility, NigerDelta Development Commission and Host Communities.
The companies in attendance include Oil companies that attended include Dubri Oil company, Lee Engineering, Equinor Oil, Famfa Oil, Sahara Group, Network E&P Ltd, Monipulo Ltd, GereenVille LNG, Chirus Energy, Seplat Energy, Roviigs Ltd, and Chevron.
