President Muhammadu Buhari has granted assent to the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) 202).
Presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina in a statement disclosed that his principal signed the bill into law on Monday in upholding his constitutional role.
The piece of the legislature had been in the works since 1999.
In 2018, after the national assembly had passed a harmonized version of the bill — the petroleum industry governance bill (PIGB), President Muhammadu Buhari rejected it, citing “legal and constitutional reasons”.
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The PIB comprises 5 parts, which includes; governance and institutions, administration, host communities development, petroleum industry fiscal framework, and miscellaneous provisions in 319 clauses and 8 schedules
Adesina disclosed that Buhari has been working from his residence in line with the five days’ quarantine as specified by the presidential steering committee on COVID-19, since his arrival from London on August 13.
”The ceremonial part of the new legislation will be done on Wednesday, after the days of mandatory isolation would have been fulfilled,” the statement reads.
The Petroleum Industry Act provides a legal, governance, regulatory and fiscal framework for the Nigerian petroleum industry, the development of host communities, and related matters.
The Senate had passed the bill on July 15, 2021, while the house of representatives did the same on July 16, thus ending a long wait since the early 2000s.
Both chambers of the National Assembly had on July 1, recommended 3% and 5% percent respectively to host communities. The recommendation however was met with backlash from stakeholders in oil-producing communities in the Niger-Delta region.
Several stakeholders including former Governor of Bayelsa State, Seriake Dickson, senator representing Bayelsa west; and his successor, Douye Diri, as well as an Ijaw national leader, Edwin Clark, have decried the three percent offer.
At the public hearing on the bill, representatives of the host communities had demanded that they be allocated 10 percent on the grounds that three percent is not enough to improve the standard of living of their people.
