CSR: Reps C’ttees threatens heads of companies with arrest warrant

The House of Representatives Committees probing the implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by Multi National oil companies and other corporate organisations in the South-South Region have threatened to issue warrant of arrests on leaders of companies that failed to honour their invitations.

The Chairman of the tripartite Committees Hon. Lilian Orogbu who frowned at the failure of some major oil companies to attend the investigative hearing warned that she and her co-chairmen as well as the entire members of the Committees would not hesitate to deal with any organisation that failed to respect their invitations.

“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 organizations that decide to undermine this assignment”, the lawmaker further warned.

Hon. Orogbu who had in her opening remarks emphasized that the essence of the investigative hearing was borne out of 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 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 are 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” she 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 Committees involved in the investigative hearing are the Corporate Social Responsibility, NigerDelta Development Commission and that of Host Communities.