Sen. Ovie Omo-Agege, the Deputy President of Senate, says the new Petroleum Industry Bill (BIP) will help drive the nation’s economy through added value and wealth from the oil and gas sector.
Omo-Agege said this at the Host Community Colloquium on the PIB in Owerri on Tuesday.
Represented by his Chief of Staff, Mr Otive Igbuzor, he said that it was unfortunate that the sector had been denied of the necessary regulations needed to activate huge potential to create value and wealth associated with the industry.
“But behind such dark cloud, is a silver lining. The good news is that the proposed Petroleum Industry Bill (2020) is coming to change all that.
“The two major planks of the Bill is to run the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as a business enterprise by the name NNPC Limited
“This is just as we have Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia; Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras) in Brazil; Equinor in Norway and Petronas in Malaysia and Establish regulatory agencies to serve as the regulatory agency of the industry,” he said.
According to him, the objectives of the bill are to promote economic growth through increased oil and gas production, promote economic growth through strong investments in midstream gas infrastructure to increase gas-based power generation and industries.
He said others included the promotion of the frontier for exploration, establishment of an effective acreage management system and creation of transparency and non-confidentiality mechanism.
“Also, transformed NNPC in a viable commercially-based and self-sustaining national oil company, create a strong regulatory framework with increased emphasis on midstream development and create an effective midstream and downstream licencing system.”
The deputy president of the senate said that promoting improved environmental measures and assisting host communities in petroleum operation to achieve their aspirations were part of the desired objectives of the PIB.
He said that the second aspect of the PIB that would help the growth of the industry was the creation of different regulatory bodies for the upstream midstream and downstream oil sector.
Omo-Agege said that the establishment of the infrastructure fund would also help in the development of the sector, the region and country at large.
“Specifically, the PIB will make a number of provisions for the creation of such gas infrastructure network.
“With the lofty objectives of the PIB and the intervention mechanisms for host communities; both existing ones and the ones expected to come with the bill, a lot of things are expected to happen that will beneficially affect host communities,” he said.
He called on all stakeholders and youths in the Niger Delta region to support ongoing efforts to ensure that the PIB was passed.
Hon. Henry Nwawuba, the Deputy Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Niger Delta expressed regret that the PIB was yet to be passed in the country.
He said that in 2018, the house did all the technical work that ensured it passage but lamented that the presidency did not assent to the bill.
He however said the 9th assembly was determined to ensure its passage before expiration of its tenure.
“After this ninth assembly was constituted, I was among those that went to senate president to let him know the importance of the bill and the need for its speedy passage.
“It is embarrassing that some countries that came behind long after we commenced debate on our PIB, have signed into law their PIB, now growing their oil and gas sector,” he said.
He said that most of the issues of host communities underscored the need for the speedy passage of the bill.
He said that it was more urgent to pass the PIB than the electoral bill because of its importance to the nation’s development plans.
He urged participants to make valuable inputs at the colloquium as the committee looked forward to working with the outcome to ensure a good PIB for the industry.
Ealier, Mr Oke Epia, the Executive Director, OrderPaper, an advocacy initiative, said that the aim of the colloquium was to bring stakeholders together to brainstorm on the PIB that was before the national assembly.
“In 2018, we convened a similar HostCom Colloquium when it was the Petroleum Host and Impacted Communities Bill component of the disaggregated PIB as it then was.
“This colloquium has been designed as you may notice on the agenda to give us deep insights into the bill, offer comparative perspectives on beneficiate practices and allow us ample opportunity to deploy the understanding gained to place certain demands on the policy actors given with responsibility of reforms of the petroleum sector.
“In order to engage a robust conversation, efforts were made to invite representations from a diverse stream of actors and stakeholders some of whom we are glad and grateful have obliged us with their presence.
“I urge all of us to make the best use of this meeting as we intend to convey an adopted resolution here from to the National Assembly,” he said.
Nigeria needs 19 million new jobs yearly, says Salami
The Chairman of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council, Prof. Doyin Salami, has said Nigeria needs to create 19 million jobs yearly to solve the unemployment problem in the country.
Salami spoke on Tuesday at a webinar on privatisation organised by the Nigerian Stock Exchange, in collaboration with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council.
He said, “Right now, Nigeria’s economic challenge is a very significant and potentially severe one. Yes, I know our economy hasn’t performed well; we have seen so far this year a contraction in the economy, and prospects are that for the rest of the year, the economy will continue to contract.
“If Nigeria’s economy is going to grow, investment is going to be at the heart of that growth. Up until now, our attention has typically been focused on the Federal Government especially in terms of the balance of its recurrent and capital spending.”
According to the foremost economist, Nigeria currently has an investment to GDP ratio of between 15 to 18 per cent.
“If we are going to make any meaningful progress, we need an investment to GDP ratio that does not fall at any time perhaps over the next decade below 25 to 30 per cent. So, no matter how we look at it, investment is going to be the fundamental catalyst for growth,” he said.
He noted that the rate of underemployment and unemployment in the Nigerian labour force stood at around 54 per cent.
Salami said, “When you look at it in terms of the youth element of our labour force, it is somewhere around 64 per cent. More than half of Nigeria’s labour force is either unemployed completely or underemployed.
“Now if we are going to remedy this, Nigeria needs to be creating roughly 19 million jobs. If we are going to do that, it cannot be the responsibility of the government sector. The whole revenue profile of the government sector in Nigeria, federal and state, is somewhere around 10 per cent.”
He stressed the need for the country to generate investment levels that could support growth that must exceed the rate of growth of population, currently estimated at about 3.2 per cent.
