By Christiana Ekpa
The House of Representatives committees investigating the implementation of corporate social responsibility by multinational oil companies and other corporate bodies in the South-South Region has threatened to issue warrant of arrests on the headship of the companies that failed to honour their summons.
The chairman of the tripartite committees, Hon. Obiageli Lilian Orogbu who issued the warning frowned at the failure of some major oil companies to attend the investigative hearing at the National Assembly.
The committees involved in the investigative hearing are the Corporate Social Responsibility, Niger Delta Development Commission and that of Host Communities.
Orogbu warned that she and her co-chairmen would not hesitate to deal with any organisation that failed to respect the assignment investigative panel.
“The House has asked us to carry out this exercise based on quantum of petitions from host communities against most of you and we will not take kindly with any organisation that decide to undermine this assignment” Orogbu warned.
The chairman who had in her opening remarks emphasised that the essence of the investigative hearing was borne out of genuine intention to ensure that corporate bodies operating in Nigeria keep to the best practices of corporate and environmental behaviours within their host communities acknowledged that “Reports at the disposal of the parliament showed that a lot of you are lagging behind in this regard.
“We want to see a change and also ensure that what you do as corporate social responsibility to your hosts is commensurate with the level of businesses you do. Some of you observe corporate social responsibility in other countries you operate but you fail to do 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 “. The chairman further stressed.
Members were also not happy that the companies that attended the hearing didn’t come with the evidences 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 companies that attended 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, Chevron.
