Senate calls for money for oil states

Nigeria’s Senate on Thursday passed a motion asking President Olusegun Obasanjo to release immediately money intended for oil-producing states, ‘The Guardian’ reported. A three-percent derivation fund for the Oil Minerals Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) should be made available since the Finance Minister had said it was being set aside, the newspaper reported Senator Udoma Udo Udoma as saying. The motion also noted that the unrest in the Niger Delta was not an isolated phenomenon but part of a widespread community problem which has become so severe it is frightening away investors. It advised the Senate committees on the Niger Delta, Petroleum and Finance, and Appropriations to study the problems of the Delta and other oil-producing communities and put forward recommendations to address the situation there. Meanwhile the US Deputy Secretary of Commerce, Robert Mallett, told the US-Nigerian Joint Economic Partnership Commission on 5 November that despite contributing over US$20 million annually to community development projects in the Niger Delta, US companies were still suffering from violence, sabotage and supply disruptions, the US Information Agency reported. He said the US Embassy had reported that Nigeria was losing some 200,000 barrels of oil per day to vandalism and closures.