Gas flaring: Reps summon Petroleum perm sec over Nigeria’s absence at UN meeting

 Gas flaring: Reps summon Petroleum perm sec over Nigeria’s absence at UN meeting
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By Our Reporter  on October 21, 2015   National
From Fred Itua and Kemi Yesufu, Abuja
The House of Representatives has summoned Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources. In the absence of the permanent secretary, his representative is expected to explain to the House why Nigeria was absent at the Zero Routine Gas Flaring Initiative in Washington DC in April this year.
 The said event was aimed at ending gas flaring globally by 2030.
 The House also mandated its standing committees on Gas Resources and Petroleum Resources (Downstream) (when constituted) to conduct a comprehensive review of relevant government policy initiatives aimed at checking gas flaring and also, assess them to determine if they conform with global best practices.
 The resolutions followed the adoption of a motion, tagged: Deploring Nigeria’s Absence at the Routine Gas Flaring Initiative in Washington D.C., United States of America, sponsored by Uchechuku Nnam-Obi and 13 other lawmakers during plenary.
 The sponsors had noted that while Nigeria, which is faced with severe challenges arising from unbridled gas flaring at onshore/offshore production sites by international oil companies operating within its shores was absent at the crucial parley, nine countries and multi-national oil companies attended.
 The lawmakers added that the initiative strives to get governments, oil companies, and developmental institutions to see gas flaring as unsustainable as it constitutes waste of resources, poses grave environmental and health dangers to the people and also detrimental to the climate and therefore, agrees to cooperate to eliminate routine flaring not later than 2030.
“Nigeria’s absence at the meeting of the Zero Routine Gas Flaring by 2030 Initiative, which was held in Washington D.C., United States of America on April 17, 2015 and the country’s inability to sign the Treaty, the cardinal objective of which is to end gas flaring by oil companies by 2030, is a major cause for concern.
“Nigeria’s absence at the meeting sent a wrong signal that she was not ready to end gas flaring which has caused a lot of damage to the environment of Ahoada-West/Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni, and the people, who are victims of the devastating effects of gas flaring, continue to live with this danger by the day as even the money paid by the companies, ostensibly as compensation cannot be equated with the colossal damage to the health of the people and their environment,” the lawmakers pointed out.