Amidst speculations that the government is splitting the Petroleum Industry Bill into manageable segments starting with a new Bill titled “Petroleum Industry Governance and Institutional Framework Bill 2015”, This Day Live reported that the Speaker of the House of Representatives Hon. Yakubu Dogara on Monday announced the National Assembly’s unwillingness to continue to maintain the status quo.
According to Dogara, the National Assembly is set to work on its own version of the bill to expedite the reforms needed in the oil and gas sector and will no longer stand on the sidelines while the Executive continue to delay in transmitting the Bill to the legislature for passage into law.
Dogara further stated that work on their own version has reached advanced stage and may soon be introduced in both chambers of the National Assembly.
Could he be alluding to the Institutional Framework Bill? We are not certain at the point. However, in our earlier report where we intimated that according to Reuters, a new Bill was in the works, the report had stated that the bill was “drafted by the Senate and overseen by the oil ministry”.