Lawan re-echoes Sylva on long-awaited passage of PIB

Senate President Ahmad Lawan on Monday revealed that the Petroleum Industry Bill will be passed into law before the end of June 2021.

This pledge by Lawan was in consonance with a recent statement by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, who also confirmed the same timeline for the passage of the Bill.

“The National Assembly has given a timeline, they actually gave April but a few things, but give or take, I still believe that the passage of the PIB will not go beyond June.

“We are hopeful that between now and June, they will pass the PIB. I don’t think we are far away with the passage of the PIB,” Sylva had noted.

In a similar vein during the opening of the 2021 Nigeria International Petroleum Summit, NIPS, in Abuja on Monday, Lawan said the joint committee of the Senate and the House of Representatives are almost concluding the writing of its report.

The Senate President explained that the delay was in order to ensure fairness regarding the concerns of all stakeholders.

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He said: “We want to be very fair in listening to everyone but one different approach that has been able to bring us where we are today in the PIB processing is that we decided right from the beginning that the solo effort in 2007/2008 by the then Executive Arm of government by bringing to the National Assembly the PIB, which at the of the day the National Assembly could not pass

“In our legislative agenda for 2019-2023 in the 9th Assembly, we decided that we must have a better way. Neither the solo effort of the Executive nor the solo effort of the legislature could deliver the PIB, we better have a cooperative approach where the National Assembly will work with the administration to conceive the Bill through very rigorous consultation, and at the end of the day, we narrowed down our differences and areas of potential conflicts.

“As I speak, our joint committee of both Senate and the House on the PIB is about to conclude writing the report which will be submitted to both chambers of the National Assembly. Our expectation is that we will pass the PIB within this month of June by the grace of God”.

By Mayowa Oladeji

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