PIB: Rep describes Senate bill as parochial

Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions, Hon. Uzoma Nkem-Abonta has described the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) drafted by the Senate for consideration as parochial in excluding host communities from benefiting from the 10 percent development fund paid by oil majors operating in the country.

He said that denying host communities development funds will make them perpetual spectators and not partakers in the resources exploited from their lands.

Speaking to journalists in Abuja, while reacting to the Senate bill, Hon. Nkem-Abonta added that those promoting such an agenda in the Senate don’t understand the extent of the neglect and sufferings experienced by host communities as a result of the oil exploration activities of oil prospecting companies.

The lawmaker warned that the Senate PIB legislation if passed into law “will keep restiveness alive in the oil producing communities”, adding that it sounds ridiculous that “while you are denying host communities any financial benefits from the natural resources found in their backyard, you are taking money realised from the sale of crude oil to prospect for oil in other parts of the country”.

Hon. Nkem-Abonta called on the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to unbundle the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to make it more professional and profit-oriented for the benefit of the nation’s oil industry.

Commenting on the state of the economy, the House member said the nation’s leaders pay too much attention to political issues, to the neglect of the national economy, advising that for the economy to experience revival, the country must do what other countries did when their economy went into recession.

He challenged the administration to formulate policies that will promote and liberalise exports instead of imports and focus on agriculture.

“The reasons for our suffering is lack of basic standard of definitions and policies for decades. We need to encourage the states to fend for themselves through comparative advantage of the natural resources that they are endowed with.

“What is happening in Nigeria is a blessing in disguise only if we can learn. Then we can get out of our current economic situation. We don’t experience natural disasters in our country, but what we experience is leadership disasters. We must think of new ways of doing things”, the lawmaker added.