Stakeholders caution government over APC recommendation on PIB

The Federal Government has been cautioned against the suggestion by the ruling party, All Progressives Congress (APC) that the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) should be scrapped.

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and other stakeholders in the oil and gas industry have cautioned that scrapping the document entirely would not be in the interest of Nigerians and the industry, as it would cause a serious draw back to the reform of the oil and gas sector.

PENGASSAN said rather than discountenancing the whole document, government should repackage it with a view to addressing areas that had become very contentious.

The whole process of the bill sailing through the National Assembly, they said, should not take more than three months if government was serious about moving the industry forward.

Francis Johnson, PENGASSAN president, told BusinessDay that it would amount to a monumental human, material and financial waste if the government took to the recommendation of the APC, saying government should come out with clear statement regarding the way forward for the oil and gas industry.

“The government should organise a meeting with the numerous stakeholders to discuss issues of crude oil theft, PIB, refineries, cash call, among others, so that Nigerians can have their minds prepared for what is ahead of them,” he said.

He described the PIB as very key to the reforms of the industry, adding that something must be done about it.

Johnson, however, said that he understood that the PIB version that the erstwhile minister of petroleum resources purportedly doctored so much in her favour, was the one that was currently being considered for scrapping.

He further said the PIB document that was prepared during the tenure of late Rilwanu Lukman would likely be the one the legislature would work with.

In his reaction, Osten Olorunishola, former director, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and chairman technical committee on the review of PIB, said the PIB can be described as a train that was on the move but yet to arrive at it terminal.

He said government must do something about the bill, or else the investment community would think the country had something to hide, saying that there should be certainty of laws and terms which would allow the direction of the government to be known by the investment community.

He urged government to put together a team of people to repackage the PIB so that it can be resubmitted to the National Assembly as an executive bill for the purpose of making it a law.