President Muhammadu Buhari has transmitted the Petroleum Industry bill to the House of Representatives for passage.
It would be recalled that in the 8th Assembly, a part of the PIB was passed by the legislature but the president declined assent due to disagreement on certain provisions in the bill.
There have been reports that the new bill will scrap the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and other agencies, however, the Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipriye Sylva has dismissed the reports, noting that the bill involves the commercialization of NNPC.
Sylva made the clarification on Monday while speaking to journalists after meeting with the leadership of the National Assembly.
“We have heard so much noise about NNPC being scrapped but that is not envisaged by the Bill at all. NNPC will not be scrapped but commercialized in line with deregulation move being made across all the streams in the sector comprising the upstream, downstream and midstream.”
Gbajabiamila in his opening remarks stated that the House will commence work on the PIB.
Meanwhile, the federal government commenced the process to repay Bayelsa, Cross River, Ondo, Osun, and Rivers States’ money spent on federal road construction.
President Muhammadu Buhari in a letter read on Tuesday by the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, seeks the approval of the House to repay the state a total sum of N148.1billion as promissory notes for federal road projects done by the state.
