Disengage from OML 30, host communities tell oil coy

By Ochuko Akuopha

HOST Communities of Heritage Energy Operational Services Limited, HEOSL, in the Oil Mining Lease, OML 30, yesterday requested the total disengagement of the company from the oil block, over what they described as the consistent failure of the company to meet it’s obligations to them.

The communities, in a statement signed by the Chairman, OML 30, Cluster Management Committee/President Generals Forum, Dr. Patrick Oboghor and Secretary, Mr. Joseph Ibuje, lamented the failure of the company to pay “GMOU fund of 2019 and 2020 despite the conducive and peaceful environment in OML 30.”

The statement listed the total stoppage of scholarship award and payment to host communities since 2016; the refusal of HEOSL to carry out the agreed staff audit of its Edjeba and Lagos offices as part of the communities’ grievances against the company.

Alleging that the company had reneged “in providing CSR projects in OML 30 since it became an operator of the asset,” the statement decried the “non-Inclusion of indigenous personal into management positions reflecting seventy/thirty (70/30) as enshrined in the GMOU.”

The statement expressed discontentment with the inability of HEOSL to pay vendors despite the hitch-free operations; non payment of salaries accrued to access control workers spanning into months, total refusal to adhere to adhere to the GMOU Article 5’10 of awarding the ‘assets security and grass cutting directly by the communities.

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“It also alleged the “consistent refusal of HEOSL to pay penalty for the default of GMOU fund payment as clearly stated in article 18’2 in every of its failed payment to communities, adding that the company had made it absolutely impossible for communities to access the deducted 5% investable fund from the GMOU as enshrined in the GMOU.

“In line with the aforementioned, the penchant and recalcitrant attitude of HEOSL to all agreed obligations and failure to communities, we hereby request the total disengagement of HEOSL from OML30 and a joint Asset Management Team, (AMT) of NPDC / Shoreline Natural Resources for Oml30 operatorship, being the most viable and largest in Nigeria”, the statement emphasized.

Vanguard

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