The House of Representatives said it has taken steps to enact the law for the sanctioning of companies which violate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practice in the country.
Oby Orogbu, the chairman, House Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility, 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 and 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”.
