Concerned members of the Uherevie Host Communities Development Trust have accused the Trust’s Board of Trustees (BoT), Executive Management and Management Committee of failing to live up to the spirit and letter of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), insisting that the law itself has not failed the people those charged with implementing it have.
The accusation was contained in a statement signed by the group’s spokesperson, Comrade James Anaughe, and released to journalists in Ughelli, Delta State, on Wednesday. The statement followed a heated stakeholders’ meeting held on Monday, December 15, 2025, at the PIA Office in GRA, Ughelli, where community leaders openly expressed frustration over what they described as years of neglect, weak leadership and disregard for the PIA 2021.
According to the group, the emergency meeting convened by the Comrade Pender Agwarive-led BoT brought together the Board of Trustees, Executive Management, Management Committee, Advisory Committee and presidents of host communities. It was called amid growing anger over the Trust’s poor engagement with the operating company, Heritage Energy Operational Services Ltd, and its failure to drive development in host communities.
“What unfolded was far beyond a routine disagreement,” the statement said. “It was a painful exposure of a governance system that has broken down, where responsibilities exist only on paper while communities remain stuck in stagnation.”
Community representatives reportedly took turns describing a Trust paralysed by inaction, pointing in particular to the failure to establish a Funds Distribution Matrix and a Host Community Development Plan both mandatory under the PIA. Despite repeated complaints and petitions, they alleged that the BoT and Executive Management showed little urgency in addressing these gaps.
Without these frameworks, the group said, the Trust has become practically ineffective, leaving development projects stalled and host communities without clear direction. One community leader reportedly summed it up bluntly: “We have a Trust without direction, funds without structure and leaders without urgency.”
The statement recalled that Sections 235 to 257 of the PIA were designed to correct decades of neglect by guaranteeing petroleum host communities structured funding, transparent governance and accountability. However, the group alleged that these safeguards have been ignored within the Uherevie Trust, with no clear development roadmap, no transparent sharing formula and no measurable outcomes.
Participants warned that such lapses amount to serious breaches of fiduciary responsibility, potentially exposing trustees and managers to legal and regulatory consequences.
The meeting also highlighted concerns that weak leadership has allowed operating companies to withdraw long-standing goodwill initiatives such as scholarships, festive support and community engagement assistance. According to the group, the silence of the Trust’s leadership in the face of these withdrawals amounts to quiet endorsement.
Even more troubling, they alleged, is the failure to invoke sanctions or compliance measures against defaulting operators, despite clear enforcement provisions in the PIA. The group said this inaction has robbed communities of years of development, denied young people opportunities and worsened poverty in oil-producing areas.
Today, they said, the impact is clear abandoned projects, unemployed and untrained youths, poor infrastructure and rising frustration across communities.
“The oil continues to flow and the law remains in force, but our people see no benefits,” the statement said. “This failure has faces, names and offices attached to it.”
The group warned that unless the BoT and Executive Management urgently return to the core objectives of the PIA, put transparent governance structures in place and assert the Trust’s statutory authority, the Uherevie Host Communities Development Trust risks losing all legitimacy in the eyes of the people it was created to serve.
