The President of the Senate,
Ahmad Lawan, declared Tuesday in Abuja that the demons frustrating the passage
and Presidential Assent to the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) within the last 14
years, will be defeated this year by the 9th National Assembly.
Lawan, who made the declaration,
while speaking to journalists on his 62 birthday celebration, said the
patriotic zeal used by the National Assembly in October 2019, to pass the
Amendment Bill on Deep Offshore Oil Production Sharing Contracts, will be
deployed for expeditious consideration and passage of the PIB already before
it, latest by the end of first quarter of this year.
“PIB is like a demon. People both
within and outside the country are ready to work against it as they have been
doing for the past fourteen years but the 9th Senate and by extension, 9th
National Assembly, will defeat the demon with the current bill before both
Chambers.
“The patriotic zeal, sheer determination and unity of purpose by all serving Senators across party lines, to do this latest by the end of first quarter of this year will be deployed on the bill immediately the Senate resumes on 26th of this month the way it did with Deep Offshore Oil Production Sharing Contracts”, he said.
The Deep Offshore Oil Production
Sharing Contracts Act, facilitated by the National Assembly in 2019, he
disclosed, has increased remittances from the sharing contracts into the
federation account from $216 million to $2 billion on yearly basis.
According to him, “For 20 years,
foreign forces and local collaborators, frustrated efforts to amend the Deep
Offshore Oil Production Contract Act, but got defeated in October 2019 with
passage of Amendment to the Act by both Chambers of the 9th National Assembly
with attendant financial and economic gains for the country.
“Those against the move in 2019,
even threatened to leave the country, but the 9th National Assembly stood its
ground in getting the previously fraudulent Act, amended with passage of the
bill which was assented to, by President Muhammadu Buhari on a Sunday in
London.”
He, however, assured the various
International Oil Companies (IOCs), working in Nigeria that the PIB to be
passed this year, will not run them out of business.
“The main purpose of PIB which
will later become an Act, when passed and assented to, by President Muhammadu
Buhari, is to make the oil sector investments friendly for both local and
foreign investors with attendant economic gains for the country.
“Through it, a required
competitive environment will be provided for businesses to grow and investors
to make their gains as well as Nigerians getting values for their money and the
government getting more revenues,” he explained .
He added that with massive
injection of budget funds into the economy, Nigeria will get out of recession
in a few months time.
According to him, to achieve
that, while implementation of the N13.588 trillion 2021 budget commences this
January, the capital component of the 2020 budget is extended to March 31 this
year as requested by the executive.
“This will no doubt ensure
injection of massive funds into the economy and get it out of recess soonest,”
he said .
He also declared that the
reversion of budget implementation cycle in Nigeria from unpredictable ones of
the past to January- December now, by both the legislature and the executive,
has increased the percentage of implementation and invariably delivery of
dividends of democracy to Nigerians.
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