By Henry Umoru & Joseph Erunke,

ABUJA—The Senate may have technically dumped the consideration of the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, which scaled first reading in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, three months ago.

But the   Senate said, yesterday, that a lot had been done on the PIB, just as it denied knowledge of moves by the executive arm of government to formally present another draft  bill to the National Assembly for consideration.

There are unconfirmed reports that the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, may have directed the joint-Senate Committee on Petroleum Upstream and Downstream to suspend further work on the pending Petroleum Industry Bill.

Saraki’s directive, Vanguard gathered, was in reaction to the opposition mounted against the treatment of the bill by senators of Southern extraction, who argued that exclusion of vital areas of the bill, one of which is the host communities fund, from the new bill, was not in the best interest of their region.

But speaking with Vanguard, yesterday, Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Senator Kaka Garbai (APC, Borno Central), said that the 8th Senate has done much on the PIB and was undergoing the second reading before Senators from the South South raised concern that the timing for the discussion on the bill was not favourable considering the renewed militancy in the Niger Delta.