Senate to resume public hearing on PIB
(Nigeria) The Nigerian Senate says it will resume another round of public
hearing on the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, on October 9 following allegations
of exclusion of some key stakeholders.
The Nigerian Bar Association, NBA and Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, among others,
had alleged that critical stakeholders were prevented from participating in
reforms of the oil sector.
To this effect, four Senate Standing Committees: Petroleum
Resources (Upstream and Downstream), Gas and Judiciary, Legal and Human Rights
were mandated to conduct the hearing.
A statement issued on Sunday in Abuja by the Chairman of the
joint Committee, Sen. Emmanuel Paulker (PDP-Bayelsa) said the decision of the
senate to resume the hearing was to ensure that the new oil law was an
aggregate of opinions in the oil and gas industry in the country.
Paulker, who is the Chairman of the Petroleum Resources
Committee (Upstream), said: ``This time around, the joint committee decided to
involve all stakeholders in the oil sector.
``We want to do this before the report is presented to the
whole Senate for consideration so that at the end of the day when the new law
is passed, nobody will complain that they were left out.’’
The bill seeks to create conducive business environment for
petroleum operations and to protect health as well as ensure safety of the
environment in the course of petroleum operations.
It also seeks to enhance exploration and exploitation of
petroleum resources in Nigeria for the benefit of Nigerians.
It will be recalled that a two-day public hearing had held
on the PIB.
The joint committee is expected to resolve some of the
contentious issues in the PIB such as the high tax regime highlighted by the
International Oil Companies (OIC's).
The IOC's had threatened to leave Nigeria by divesting from
the sector because of the new laws.
The Senate President David Mark had, however, charged the
joint committee not to entertain ``parochial views,’, adding that ``Nigeria
should be utmost in the minds of the oil and gas players.’
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