By Gift Olivia Samuel, The Sight News
Social Action has urged the new minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Silva, to take on the task of delivering the Petroleum Industry Bill(PIB) pointedly, and make it a focal action point of his mandate.
This is just as it noted, that the appointment of the Minister of Petroleum Resources is one that has a lot of import for not only the nations beleaguered oil industry but also the Niger Delta and country as a whole.
Making these known in a statement, the Head, Social Action National Advocacy, Abuja, Mrs. Vivian Bellonwu, stated that as new minister of Petroleum, no doubt, the tasks before Chief Timipre Silva are enormous
She remarked, that from the challenges of the downstream to the roughages that line the mid and upstream sectors, to the traumatized environment and region bearing the oil, it is, without doubt, a full cup.
Bellonwu also revealed, that effective delivery will to a large extent be a factor of proper priority placement and in this regard, the long-drawn petroleum industry Bill, PIB needs to be placed in proper focus.
In her words, “Noble as the objectives of this bill may be, with part of its aim seeking to establish framework for the creation of commercially oriented and profit-driven petroleum entities to ensure value addition and internalisation of the petroleum industry, the PIB has suffered seemingly intractable setbacks in its legislative journey, leading to its non-passage since introduction in 2008 till date.
“The bill which was meant to establish key institutions for the Oil and Gas industry, provide effective regulation of operations and operators in the industry in line with global best practices and cater for the interest and aspirations of local host communities in the industry has been left comatose in Nigeria’s parliament with the Oil and Gas industry operating in similar status, replete with archaic laws and outdated policies that have worked to truncate the country’s socio-economic development goals.
“Mindful of the fact the PIB holds far-reaching import for both the environment and economy of the country, We urged Timipre Silva to see to it that the PIB breaks the jinx of bill status to being a law. Such a landmark feat will no doubt see ripple effect across the nation’s socio-economic sector”, she ended.
