Majority of oil companies operating in the Niger Delta region owe the Niger Delta Development Commission over N1.2tn debt, an agent of the commission, Paris Trust Limited, has said.

According to the agent, the money is an accumulation of dues payable to the NDDC, which the oil firms had failed to remit since 2015.

PTL said it had been appointed by the NDDC to recover the debt from the oil companies.

It said it had issued letters to the defaulting oil companies and given them a seven-day ultimatum to pay up or face litigation.

The organisation explained that developmental activities of the commission in the oil-producing region were financed through monies remitted by the oil companies.

The Principal Partner of PTL, Timothy Bagwams, who stated these in Abuja, threatened that it would be left with no option than to resort to legal action if at the end of a seven-day ultimatum, the companies failed to make the remittances.

He lamented that the failure of the companies to pay their dues to the NDDC had affected development in the South-South region.

He said, “Since 2015, majority of the companies have failed to remit the statutory three per cent of their annual budgets to the NDDC.

“Section 14(2)(b) of the NDDC Act, 2014 says three per cent of the total annual budget of any oil producing company operating on shore and off shore in the Niger-Delta area; including gas-processing companies shall pay and credit to the fund established by the NDDC for the defrayal of all expenditure.

“But as I speak with you, the companies owe the NDDC more than N1.2tn, and this is why the commission is achieving little in addressing the developmental needs of the region.”

He said that the NDDC had asked the Federal Government and all the oil and gas companies operating in the Niger-Delta region to fulfill their financial statutory obligations to the commission by paying all their outstanding remittances to its coffers.

Bagwams said the NDDC had written to the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the Federal Ministry of Finance requesting for the remittance of well over N1.5tn.

He also disclosed that since 2015, the Federal Government had not been remitting its statutory 15 per cent of the total monthly statutory allocations due to member states of the commission from the Federation Account as well as the 50 per cent of monies due to member states of the commission from the Ecological Fund.