• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Pressure back on Buhari as Senate passes PIGB

Petrol

The pressure is back on President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB) into law as the Senate on Wednesday passed a revised version of the bill that addressed the president’s concerns.

The PIGB is one of four parts of the proposed Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), which seeks to update the outdated provisions with a more comprehensive and current petroleum industry law that aligns with global standards. President Buhari rejected an earlier version of the bill in July 2018.

The Senate also passed six other bills earlier rejected by the president.
“The Senate has responded to the issues the president raised, it’s very important that he signs this bill because the sector outlook and economic outlook have revealed we won’t be doing well if we don’t sign the bill,” Ademola Henry, team leader at the Facility for Oil Sector Transformation (FOSTER), said.

In withholding assent to the PIGB last year, Buhari had kicked against the provision permitting the Petroleum Regulatory Commission to retain as much as 10 percent of the revenue generated and expanding the functions of the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF).

In the new bill, the Senate agreed with Buhari’s submission and reduced the revenue generated by the regulatory commission from 10 percent to 5 percent. It also expunged the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF) from Part IV of the new bill.

“His (Buhari’s) concerns surrounding his power as minister, revenue loss by the federation and many other issues have been addressed; he has no choice than to sign it,” Henry said.
On whether the PIGB will still have impact on the sector, Henry said it will still achieve its objectives.

“Something is better than nothing. Secondly, it will take some time before it has impact because it has been in the works for 18 years,” he said.

One of the major stakeholders who worked on the drafting of the PIB, Wunmi Iledare, said if President Buhari doesn’t sign the PIGB after all this, he is only playing politics and does not have the interest of the oil and gas sector at heart.

“PIGB will solve most of leakages and problematic structures in Nigeria’s oil and gas,” said Iledare, who is Ghana’s National Petroleum professor and chair, University of Cape Coast’s Institute of Oil and Gas.

“I am not sure he is listening to experts because if he is, he won’t be playing politics with the industry that is feeding the nation. If we don’t do this PIGB now, in the next five years we will end up like Venezuela,” Iledare told BusinessDay.

Beyond the PIGB, Ayodele Oni, energy expert at Bloomfield Law Practice, was more concerned about having the right personnel with the right mentality to make NNPC run efficiently.
“There are other major issues surrounding fiscal bill and tax royalties that need to be addressed,” Oni told BusinessDay.

10 years after the Petroleum Industry Bill was introduced, Africa’s biggest oil producer still does not have a set of laws to guide the governance of the oil industry at all levels and provide the clarity and certainty that are necessary to attract foreign and domestic investment to grow the sector, as well as enshrine good governance and global best practices.

Nigeria is not the only oil-producing country, and other investors have moved elsewhere to engage with more serious nations.

While Nigeria is still playing politics with its major source of revenue, other countries are growing in leaps and bounds. Ghana, for example, passed its Petroleum Exploration and Production Act in 2016, Tanzania passed its Petroleum Act in 2015, Mozambique passed its Petroleum Law in 2014, while Uganda passed its own reforms in 2013. For some strange reasons, no Nigerian president has been courageous enough to sign the PIB.

To remove all the stumbling blocks against the bill, the National Assembly decided to disaggregate the bill into four parts: The PIGB, the Petroleum Industry Fiscal Bill, the Petroleum Industry Administrative Bill, and the Petroleum Industry Host and Impacted Community Development Bill.

PIGB seeks to create efficient and effective governing institutions with clear and separate roles for the petroleum industry, establish a framework for the creation of commercially-oriented and profit-driven petroleum entities to ensure value addition and internationalisation of the petroleum industry, promote transparency and accountability in the administration of petroleum resources of Nigeria, and foster a conducive business environment for petroleum industry operations.

Recall that the Senate had recently adopted the report of the Technical Committee on Declined Assent to Bills, which worked on Mr President’s observations and redrafted the affected clauses in the bills.

The six other bills passed by the senate on Wednesday include the Stamp Duties (Amendment) Bill, National Institute of Hospitality and Tourism (Est.) Bill, National Research and Innovation Council (Est.) Bill, National Agricultural Seeds Council Bill, Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (Amendment) Bill, as well as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Act 2010 (Amendment) Bill.

President Buhari had declined assent to the bills passed by the National Assembly citing several grounds ranging from financial constraints, negative impact on Nigerians, duplication of responsibilities of existing agencies, violations of extant laws to lack of consultation with relevant stakeholders.

 

OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja, & DIPO OLADEHINDE, Lagos