The House of Representatives has taken steps to enact enact the law for the sanctioning of companies which violate Corporate Social Responsibility (SCR) practice in the country.
The chairman, House Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility, Hon. Oby Orogbu, gave this indication at a public hearing on “A bill to regulate CSR in Nigeria and for other related matters Nigeria on Tuesday.
This was just as the committee issued last warning to MTN and Airtel, telecommunication service providers to honour its invitation or face the warrant of arrest by the legislative panel.
The committee’s chairman noted that some companies operating in the country have over the time violated the law, hence the need for punishment to be imposed on them.
Orogbu frowned at the National Communications Commission (NCC), MTN and Airtel for several times ignoring the invitation of the committee, saying the panel will not hesitate to involve its powers and issue a warrant of arrest on them.
She said: “Section 89, 8 of the Constitution mandates individual companies as invited to make themselves available to parliament but they break the law and I want to tell you Sir , MTN Airtel they take so much from our nation and they feel too big to appear before the parliament we will not tolerate that.
“I want you as a regulatory body to organise those telecommunication companies were they will be meeting between this parliament and the telecommunication, we gave them the powers to operate in Nigeria so to refuse to honour the invitation of the parliament is a no, no, we take exception to it . The parliament is frowning at it and this is an opportunity to say clearly.
“If MTN is here and I have taken all friendly measures to make them understand the need to appear before the parliament but they have refused. If you feel you are responsible then you should appear before the parliament, we want you to be responsible and accountable. They operate across the country and they have disrespected the same nation by not housing our invitation.
“We have a lot of petitions on these companies causing problems for us in Nigeria, construction companies, oil companies, tele companies and over the years they have had their way, so I disagree that we make it persuasive.”
In his presentation, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Olayemi Cardoso kicked against the bill for proposing penalty of imprisonment to defaulting companies.
Represented by assistant director in CBN, Wondi Ndanusa the CBN governor said instead of the penalty, persuasion should be employed in entrenching CSR by companies.
He also said many companies were faced with a lot of financial burden and responsibilities, proposing that SCR should be domiciled in the Corporate Affairs Commission.
Also speaking, representative of Oil Producers Trade Section, Bala Wuoir expressed concern that the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) has already mandated oil companies operating in Nigeria to make financial contribution of 3% of their profit to NDDC, so mandating them do so more will be burdensome on them and called for the exemption of oil companies from the bill’s proposals.
Speaking earlier the Speaker of the House who was represented by the House Leader, Hon. Julius Ihonvbere said the bill seeks to provide legal status and guidelines to corporate responsibility for better coordination and regulation.
He said: “This bill is one of the legislative processes to provide legal status and guidance to our corporate social responsibility in our country.
“As we are aware, corporate social responsibility is a social obligation that corporate organisations discharge to their stakeholders, individuals, and communities in the society. Often, these corporate responsibilities are rarely coordinated and documented.”
