Tech
Senate President constitutes conference c’ttee on PIB
Following last week’s passage of the long awaited Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB by both chambers of the National Assembly, the Senate President, Dr. Ahmad Lawan, has announced the composition of the conference committee on the bill.
The members of the conference committee as announced during plenary by Lawan include the Senate Leader, Senators Abdullahi Yahaya, who will serve as the chairman; Senators Mohammed Sabo Nakudu representing North West; Albert Bassey Akpan – South South; Danjuma Goje – North East; Opeyemi Bamidele – South West; Stella Oduah – South East and Gabriel Suswam – North Central.
The Senate President charged members of the conference committee to meet with their counterparts in the House of Representatives to enable the National Assembly come up with a final document on the PIB for transmission to the Executive arm of government.
He said: “The conference committee will meet with our counterparts in the House, the House will also announce the composition of the conference committee, and we hope that they will swing into action immediately, so that we are able to have the final document of the PIB which we will transmit for the presidential assent.
“So, we expect our delegation here under the leadership of the Senate Leader to engage with our colleagues in the House of Representatives.”
It would be recalled that the National Assembly made history on Thursday, July 1 with the passage of the complete version of the PIB, which had spent about 20 years at the parliament, failing to be passed by previous Assemblies due to vested interests of lawmakers, which cut across ethnic, religious, and political leanings.
The federal lawmakers unanimously achieved the feat after clause by clause consideration of the report of the Bill on an Act to Provide Legal, Governance, Regulatory and Fiscal Framework for the Nigerian Petroleum Industry, the Development of Host Communities and for Related Matters, 2021 by the Joint Committee on Petroleum Resources -Downstream, Upstream and Gas.
The only area of disagreement between the two chambers in the 319 clauses report submitted by their various ad-hoc committees on the bill is that while the Senate approved three percent operating costs for host communities, the House retained the five percent recommended by the joint committee.
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