…Urges Nigerians to mount pressure on Buhari, NASS
Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Nigeria, an extractive industry civil society group, on Monday decried the continued delay in passage of Petroleum Industry Governance Bill and other Petroleum Industry Bills (PIBs), urging Nigerians to intensify pressure on President Muhammadu Buhari and the leadership of the National Assembly ahead of 2019 elections.
Speaking during a press briefing in Abuja, Peter Egbule, the National Coordinator, PWYP Nigeria, said both arms of government ought to treat PIBs as a matter of urgent national importance, stressing that the country losses such much revenue from the delay in bills.
“We therefore plead with the National Assembly and the Presidency to consider the enactment of these laws as issues of national importance, and act accordingly, as we are losing substantial amount of revenues by the day, and community livelihoods are degenerating by the minute without these laws”
According PWYP boss, some of the provisions of the substantive law presently guiding the operations, administration, and overarching regulation of the petroleum industry in Nigeria (the Petroleum Act of 1969), enacted about fifty years ago, have since been overtaken by significant changes in the domestic and global realities of the industry.
Egbule regretted that attempts at enacting a more effective and socioeconomically beneficial law to regulate the petroleum industry in Nigeria had lasted for eighteen years (2000 -2018) without success.
He said the as the 2019 elections approaches Nigerians are suppose to ask questions and mount pressure on the both arms of government to facilitate the speedy passage petroleum industry bills.
The PWYP National Coordinator, acknowledged the present administration to restructure the PIB which has necessitated the disaggregation of the initial Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) into four distinctive bills, the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB), the Petroleum Industry Administrative Bill (PIAB), the Petroleum Industry Fiscal Bill (PIFB), and the Petroleum Host and Impacted Community Bill (PHAICB).
“We wish to remind the governing and the governed that the passage of, and signing into law of these bills is in the collective interest of all Nigerians, as this will create a more functional administrative structure, significantly reduce financial leakages, encourage foreign and domestic investments, provide succor for host communities, among others”.
