The much talked –about Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) seems to the facing challenges again as the Senate has postponed its public hearing previously slated for October 9,(last Wednesday) when it was initially postponed from 2ndof October 2013.
Moreover, it has now been postponed until further notice due to the absence of some of the members of the Senate who are currently on holy pilgrimage to Mecca.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum, (Upstream) Senator Emmanuel Paulker, revealed this as a major reason for the latest postponement debunking the allegation that it is an attempt to frustrate the passage of the bill into law.
Paulker told the newsmen in Abuja on Monday that the senate was not employing tactics to stall the passage of the bill insisting “the forced postponement of the public hearing was due to circumstances beyond our control”.
“There is no cause for alarm. Everything humanly possible will be done to see the PIB through this time around. Contrary to insinuations, opposition against the bill is only against some clauses in the bill.
Justifying reasons for the postponements, Paulker added: “The PIB has no problem. Our first outing for the public hearing slated for two days in May this year, was inconclusive because we lost a colleague on the second day of the two-day event.
“The first day of the hearing we started but the second day was the burial of Senator Pius Ewherido. I cannot sit in the Senate for a public hearing when a colleague was being buried.
Paulker added that national interest would prevail at the end of the day and that the PIB would be discussed and invariably passed by the National Assembly.
However, he confirmed that clarified that international oil companies were opposing the fiscal regime of the bill while some northern governors have also been against the 10 per cent equity funding for the host communities.
He noted that stakeholders in the petroleum industry already agreed that the laws regulating the oil and gas sector have become so obsolete and required complete review.
“Oil is the mainstay of our economy. We are looking forward to a day that the economy would be diversified. There is so much reliance on oil.
“As long as the economy rests on oil and there is an Act that is coming to repeal all laws surrounding this single all-important commodity, every serious- minded Nigerian would be interested.
“I have continued to receive calls from my colleagues and other stakeholders that if we hold the public hearing on October 9, it will not be possible for them to participate in the exercise.
“One thing I will assure Nigerians is that everything humanly possible will be done to ensure that the PIB will see the light of the day. As soon as we have this last outing of the public hearing we will retreat to our committee level.
“We can decide to lock up ourselves for a week or two weeks to filter the bill so that we can forward it to plenary”, paulker said noting the importance of the bill to the development of Nigeria as well as all sectors of economy.
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