Petroleum Industry Bill 2020 has reportedly scaled through first reading on the floor of the Nigeria Senate during plenary today.
According to the report on Wednesday, September 30, the leader of the Senate, Yahaya Abdullahi, presented the proposed PIB bill before today at the plenary while Ahmad Lawan, the President of the Senate read the bill for the first time.
In his remarks, Ahmad Lawan directed the Clerk of the Senate, Dauda Ibrahim El- Ladan to ensure that all the Senators must start getting the copies by tomorrow and ensure that they all have them on Tuesday next week.
The senate president in 2019 has lamented that the bill had stayed too long in the National Assembly since its introduction and that the delay in concluding works on it was affecting the petroleum sector.
However, the leadership of the National Assembly had, on Monday, pledged to accelerate legislative action on the Petroleum Industry Bill submitted by the President Muhammadu Buhari.
They also vowed to ensure thoroughness in its consideration, which according to the principal officers, would be treated simultaneously with the 2021 national budget.
The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, stated this during a National Assembly joint leadership meeting on the PIB, with the Minister of State for Petroleum, Timpre Sylva.
The meeting also had in attendance the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mele Kyari, and other heads of the NNPC subsidiaries.
(c) Control TV 2020.
