PIB Divides Senate

The Senate was yesterday narrowly saved an unsavoury and rowdy session as the upper chamber commenced debate on   the controversial Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB)

The bill was to divide the Senate sharply on regional basis with most  senators from the North picking holes in  the clause introducing three per cent community fund.

Leading the debate, Senate Majority Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba told his colleagues that  when the Bill is passed into law, it would “fundamentally alter the legal, fiscal and proprietary dynamics and regime of our oil sector”.

Ndoma Egba noted that  the Bill would harmonise and consolidate the diverse and disparate laws, about 16 of them, that today govern and regulate the sector.

He therefore described it as “ one of the most important Bills to be considered by this distinguished and hallowed chamber”,

He also  observed that the previous Bill introduced during the last sixth National Assembly which contained a provision for the source of funding for the Petroleum Technology Development Fund was missing in the new Bill.

Senator    Ali Ndume from Borno South  kicked against the clause seeking to establish a  host community fund. He rather preferred  that the Bill to introduce host community equity partnership which would give communities opportunity to operate.

Ndume’s words,  “the bill has a lot of inconsistencies, NNPC is supposed to be split into three, but adequate funding is not being made available for the three companies.

“The National Frontier Agency is supposed to be standing alone and on the host community development fund, it will be better if they have equities or part ownership of the operating industries in the communities.”

On his own part,  Senator Alkali Jajere from Yobe South also kicked against the host community development fund, stressing that the bill   gave too much powers to the Minister of Petroleum Resources. He said if allowed to stand, it would make the Minister too powerful and uncontrollable.

Ahmed Lawan from Yobe North raised much tension as he reeled out numerous  issues against the bill .

He  opposed the 10 per cent host community development fund introduced into the new Bill and rolled out  figures to show that over N11 trillion for Derivation and other funds since 1999 were unaccounted for by different state governments in oil producing states were mismanaged.

Nneka Amaechi-Nnadi, Abuja