Concerned members of the Uherevie Host Communities Development Trust have accused the Trust’s Board of Trustees (BoT), Executive Management and Management Committee of sabotaging the very mandate of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), declaring that the law did not fail the people—those entrusted to implement it did.
The allegations were contained in a press statement signed by Comrade James Anaughe, spokesman of the group, and made available to journalists in Ughelli on Wednesday. The statement followed a tense stakeholders’ meeting held on Monday, December 15, 2025, at the PIA Office, GRA Ughelli, where community representatives openly accused the Trust’s leadership of negligence, inertia and sustained disregard for the PIA 2021.
According to the statement, an emergency joint meeting involving the BoT, Executive Management, Management Committee, Advisory Committee and presidents of all host communities was hastily convened by the Comrade Pender Agwarive–led BoT in response to rising anger over what communities described as years of institutional failure and poor engagement with operating company Heritage Energy Operational Services Ltd.
“What played out was not a routine disagreement but a damning indictment of a governance structure in collapse,” the group said, noting that speaker after speaker portrayed a Trust crippled by inaction, where statutory responsibilities exist only on paper while host communities remain trapped in stagnation.
At the heart of the crisis, the group said, is the persistent failure to establish and operationalise a Funds Distribution Matrix and an approved Host Community Development Plan, both core requirements under the PIA. Community leaders alleged that despite repeated petitions and warnings, the BoT and Executive Management showed years of indifference.
The absence of these frameworks, participants said, has rendered the Trust practically non-functional, stalled development projects and left communities without direction or protection. One community president summed it up bluntly: “We have a Trust without direction, funds without structure, and leaders without urgency.”
The statement recalled that the PIA, particularly Sections 235 to 257, was enacted to end decades of marginalisation by guaranteeing direct benefits to petroleum host communities through structured funding, transparent governance and strict fiduciary duties. However, the group alleged that within the Uherevie Trust, these provisions have been deliberately sidelined, with no clear development plan, no transparent distribution formula, no implementation timeline and no measurable outcomes.
Participants warned that such failures amount to systemic breaches of fiduciary duty, potentially exposing trustees and managers to legal and regulatory sanctions.
Beyond internal governance failures, the meeting also revealed that weak leadership has emboldened operating companies to quietly withdraw long-standing goodwill interventions, including scholarships for indigent students, festive support and engagement assistance for community leadership. The silence of the BoT in the face of these withdrawals was described as tacit approval.
More troubling, the group alleged that no sanctions or formal compliance actions have been initiated against defaulting operators, despite enforcement mechanisms provided under the PIA. They said this failure has cost communities years of development, denied youths opportunities and deepened poverty in oil-producing areas.
The consequences, the statement noted, are now visible: abandoned projects, untrained youths, unmet infrastructure needs and growing frustration among community members.
“The oil still flows, the law still stands, but our people see nothing,” the group declared. “That failure has names and offices attached to it.”
The meeting ended with a warning that unless the BoT and Executive Management urgently realign with the PIA, enforce transparent governance structures and assert the Trust’s statutory mandate, the Uherevie Host Communities Development Trust risks a total collapse of legitimacy.
