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The Senate will
this morning commence the third reading of the Petroleum Industry Bill
(PIB) after it deferred deliberations last week.

The postponement
last week was due to the failure of senators to form a quorum,
apparently as a result of the ongoing political campaigns. Last
Tuesday, only 23 of 109 senators, 10 short of the required minimum to
form a quorum, attended the sitting, which was presided over by the
deputy Senate president, Ike Ekwerenmadu.

Senate
spokesperson, Ayogu Eze, stated last week that the Senate would pass
the Bill today provided there is a quorum of members. Of the 23
senators in attendance, only three were running for re-election.
Truancy in the Senate has caused delays in the passage of bills.

Recently, the
Anti-Money Laundry Bill suffered a setback twice due to the absence of
Ibrahim Ida (PDP, Katsina State), who headed the committee that handled
the review of the Bill. Also, the Tobacco Control Bill, which suffered
a similar fate recently, is still pending before the Senate due to the
absence of Iyabo Obasanjo, whose committee authored the Bill.

Delaying the Bill

Since the PIB was
introduced into the two chambers of the National Assembly in December
2008, it has suffered series of delays due to disagreements on the
provisions of the Bill by various stakeholders. The memorandum
submitted by the Federal Government to both chambers of the National
Assembly identified 14 critical gaps in the draft bill and sought to
close those gaps with about 165 amendments.

After several
interactive sessions with various interest groups, a total of 56
changes were reportedly made by the petroleum industry through the Oil
Producers Trade Section (OPTS), 36 by Federal Inland Revenue Services
(FIRS), 7 by the World Bank/IMF, and 66 by other stakeholders,
including the labour unions.

Host communities,
indigenous oil companies, and federal lawmakers from the oil producing
Niger Delta had during the public hearing on the Bill, insisted that
they will not support the law unless some sections providing for the
interest of the communities were amended to accommodate their interests.

Other relevant
parties of the industry have also raised some serious concerns over the
bill through its period of legislation. It is, however, not clear if
the issues raised by the various interest groups were addressed in the
Bill.

The management of
the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) at various times had
claimed that government may have been losing about $55.4 million (about
N8.31 billion) monthly as a result of the continued delay in passing
the PIB by the National Assembly.

Chairman of the
Senate panel that reviewed the Bill, Lee Maeba (PDP, Rivers State),
said the benefits of PIB to the Nigerian economy and the petroleum
industry were enormous.

“It will ensure a
strong and virile regulatory framework for overall efficiency of the
petroleum industry, maximisation of the benefits of exploitation of
Nigerian petroleum resources through increase in government take,
overcoming government’s cash call problems, and promotion of
availability of gas for electricity production,” he said.

The Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) is conceived to repeal the
Petroleum Act of 1969, and consolidate about 16 other petroleum
industry laws into one single, transparent and coherent document. The
objective is to establish a comprehensive legal and regulatory
framework for good governance, transparency and accountability with
regard to operational and fiscal terms for revenues management, and
removal of confidentiality clauses in licences, leases and contracts in
the nation’s petroleum industry.