By Clara Nwachukwu, in Houston, Texas
Nigerian lawmakers have begun to worry over the continued delay in the presentation of the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, by the executive, which is believed to have created a huge vacuum and stunted growth in the country’s oil and gas industry.

A member of the House of Representatives, Peter Akpatason and former President of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, told journalists on Tuesday at the ongoing Offshore Technology Conference, OTC, in Houston Texas, USA, that fresh investments had been frozen.

He said: “Virtually everything in the oil and gas is on standstill as we speak. Investments, development of new and old projects and all of that because of the non-passage of the PIB.”

The bill has been in and out of the National Assembly in excess of 10 years from the time it was drafted by the Oil and Gas Industry Committee, OGIC.

Akpatason  said: “Actually people call it non-passage, but there is even no bill in the first place. You don’t talk about passage of the bill when there is no bill anywhere. I was a member of the OGIC committee that came up with the PIB many years ago, and then I was not in the parliament.”

Versions of a bill

He recalled that the bill could not scale through the last legislative session because of too much politicking and varied interests.

Akpatason said: “There was an attempt to pass the bill. It failed because it was over delayed by the intervention of the industry and the political class. A lot of versions came up: we had one the inter-agency committee headed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC; we had the one that came from the industry, which was actually packaged by the IOCs, and then the one that originally came from our committee, the OGIC that were with the National Assembly.

“At the end of the day, it took so much time and effort to identify which one was the right one, before they eventually started the process, and then the pressure kept coming until the end of that 6th Assembly and they were unable to pass it.”

Implication of delay

Akpatason said that the lawmakers had expected the executive to present a harmonised bill from all the various versions that were presented during the 6th National Assembly session, rather than drafting a new one all over again.

He argued that the implication of this development is further delay in the passage of the bill as opposed to the anticipated speedy process.

being touted by government.

He said: “We are going to continue from where the 6th Assembly stopped. But you know in such situation, we are to start it all over again. But even while there was that willingness to do so, the new government came up with the idea of producing a fresh draft all together.”

“I don’t know what informed that, but that is the reality on ground at the moment. We hope that that will be done as quickly as possible. As it stands now, it is left for the executive arm of government, the NNPC or the Ministry of Petroleum, to come up with a new PIB.

”As we speak right now, there is no one in the National Assembly. So we cannot talk about non passage, but rather the situation we have is that there is no bill at all. But if one comes, we are so willing and determined to pass it, particularly for people like us who have experienced it from both sides.

“Having known that the reason that a lot of things are not happening in the oil and gas industry is that the transformation that is premised on the PIB is yet to take place and as a result of that, investments are not coming in, no expansion and no growth in the industry.”