Unarguably, Nigeria has contributed tremendously to the international market in terms of crude oil exportation. Despite this enormous input, Nigeria has globally, it has not really translated into an aggressive transformation of the Nigerian economy due to outdated legislation in the oil and gas sector.
In fact, since the enactment of the petroleum act of 1969, there have been no any holistic legislation that will comprehensively address the changing dynamics of the oil and gas industry in Nigeria. In light of this, the federal government in the year 2000, set up the oil and gas reform implementation committee (OGIC) to fashion out a legal and regulatory framework, that would stipulate guidelines for operation in the upstream, midstream and downstream sector. Thus, the Petroleum Industry Bill(PIB) In the year 2009, the late president Umaru Musa yar’Adua’s administration, presented this important document to the sixth national assembly, it was quite funny that up to the end of the tenure of the sixth national assembly, the PIB did not see the light of the day.
This was attributed to some conflicting interest in the house and lack of adequate support by some stakeholders in the industry.
In March, 2012, the Federal Government through the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, inaugurated a Special PIB Task force chaired by Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, to produce a clean and uncontroversial copy of the bill. After deliberation with all stakeholders in the industry, it came up with new petroleum industry bill.
In June 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan presented the bill to the national assembly before it proceeded on recess. At this juncture, let me synchronize some worth of this bill.
Over the years, government activities in the oil and gas industry have been perceived as largely characterized by lack of openness and transparency. In fact, government activities in the industry are shielded on the condition of confidentiality.
This has led to massive corruption practices in the activities of some government agencies as it was established in the report of House of Representatives ad-hoc committee of fuel subsidy and presidential subsidy investigation committee.
It is obvious that corruption would continue to strive in as far as there were no publicly known procedure and processes and where sanctions for non-compliance are weak.
PIB if enacted into law, would remove confidentiality in government activities. Interestingly, the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill by the 9th National Assembly and accented to by President Mohammadu Buhari which transformed it to Petroleum Industry Act is a welcome development.
The PIA is the driving force for economic transformation as it would open up billions of dollars’ worth of investment.
Again, investment opportunities abound in the areas of pipeline construction, exploration, refining, supply and distribution of petroleum products, by extension, create job for the army of unemployed youths.