BY VICTORIA ONU
PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari will, next week, receive the harmonised version of the Petroleum Industry Bill.
The Senate Committee Chairman on Petroluem Resources (Upstream), Bassey Akpan, said this on Wednesday in Abuja, during a panel session at the Nigeria Oil and Gas conference.
The PIB was passed into law last week by the National Assembly, nine months after it was submitted by the President to the parliament.
The passage of the bill came with some areas of disagreement between the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The development led to the setting up of a panel to harmonise the contentious areas.
Akpan said that the panel would, in a joint meeting with their counterparts at the House of Representatives, harmonise the report of the PIB and lay same on the floor on Tuesday next week.
He expressed optimism that the harmonised version of the bill would be passed next Tuesday and sent to the President for assent.
The Senator said, “We have deliberately ensured that we passed a good law for this country.
“Between now and Tuesday, the joint committee will be laying our report at the floor and by next week, the bill will be going to the President.
“We have come up with a law that will move the industry forward. The law will deepen the mid stream and downstream and will also shift our focus to gas.”
The passage of the bill, though long-awaited, stirred mixed reactions among lawmakers and Nigerians alike.
A key provision of the bill that triggered outrage was the allocation of 30 per cent of NNPC’s profit to frontier basins for exploration. The states referred to as ‘frontier basins’ were not clearly stated in the report.
Another controversial provision of the bill is the allocation of three per cent operating expenditure to host communities – as passed by the Senate, while the House approved five per cent.
The committee is expected to address these and other conflicting issues in the report after which the harmonised legislation will be transmitted to the President for assent.
