‘Petroleum policy offers nothing for locals’

Thursday, December 24, 2009
By Adeel Pathan

HYDERABAD: The National Petroleum Exploration and Development Policy 2009 has been formulated more for encouraging foreign investment in the sector than for the progress and development of the local people and the area from where the resources will be extracted.

These views were expressed by the speakers at a one-day consultation study on ‘National Petroleum Policy 2009: Civil Society’s Perspective’ jointly organized by Action Aid Pakistan and Bhandar Hari Sangat here on Wednesday.

They demanded that the government should recognize local people right on their natural resources.

Professor Rafiq Chandio of Sindh University, who presented the policy analysis, said the policy offered incentives to the companies while the provisions regarding the community development were quite vague. The oil and gas extraction entailed environmental disasters. However, the policy did not take such disasters into account.

“It is ironical that the districts of Sindh and Balochistan whose contribution in national production of oil and gas resources is highest are the most poor and backward areas in terms of human development index,” said Dr Chandio.

Like the 2007 policy, the current policy said the locals would be given priority in providing jobs by the oil and gas companies in their areas. However, complaints abound regarding the employment of locals in the companies. The policy offered nothing to redress the grievances regarding its implementation.

Zulfiqar Halepoto, secretary Sindh Democratic Forum, said that the current policy was the reflection of Musharraf government’s policy and there was no major change in it. So this policy should be reviewed while taking the communities into confidence.

As per constitution, President of Pakistan was authorized to make agreements with the companies under PCA and the civil society must demand the present democratic regime should grant these powers to the respective provincial assemblies.

He further said that study had only focused on-shore exploration and on the other hand government was issuing unlimited licenses for off-shore exploration so that people of Sindh should be taken into confidence before selling the province’s coastal and off-shore resources to corporations.

Sikandar Brohi of Participatory Development Initiatives said the policy recommended an implementation committee, headed by federal minister of petroleum and natural resources and including director general petroleum concession and a number of bureaucrats from the ministry.

He criticized the composition of the committee saying that it did not include the representatives from the affected communities and provinces, who have been highlighting the issues of injustices in resource distribution.

According to the policy, he said the foreign companies were supposed to pay certain amount as production bonus meant for community welfare whereas the public companies had been given exemption from payment of production bonus.

He said there were two pages in the policy dedicated to maintaining data secrecy, which was clear violation of the right to information. Exploration and extraction of petroleum resources had nothing to do with national security, therefore, concealing the related information makes no sense.

Muhammad Ali Lashari of Malhar Development Organization said the local people of any area were the real owners of resources. The policy did not recognize their right on their resources. He lamented that the districts that generated high resources were the most backward districts.

The representatives of the affected communities from different oil and gas well in the province participated in the consultation.

Those who spoke on the occasion included Jabbar Khaskheli of Lyari Development Organization, Khairpur Mirs, Abdul Fateh Dehri of Village Shadabad Organization, Dadu; Hajul Seelro of NGOs Development Society, Qambar Shahdadkot; Om Parkash, Sami Foundation, Umberkot; and Sawan Khan of Badin Rural Development Society.