The lawmaker representing Esan North-east/South-east federal constituency of Edo State in the House of Representatives, Hon. Sergius Ogun, has revealed that some members did not have copies of the bill during the clause-by-clause consideration of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) in the House on Thursday.
He said it was a good thing that the National Assembly was able to pass the bill, adding that it might not be everything everybody wants, “but it is a bill and no bill is perfect.”
Ogun stated this while speaking with journalists yesterday in Abuja, saying with the passage of the Bill, the President would sign the bill and investors that had been sitting on the fence would come in and invest here.
He stated: “We didn’t have enough copies, we were told to pick up copies at a particular room yesterday, my aide went there, and they were not available, we went there again this morning, they were not there.
“They brought some to the chambers, it was not enough for everybody; the Deputy Chairman of the committee told us that they will come in a short while.
“I just went to make the Chairman of the ad hoc committee know that we all do not all have copies; as much as I have gone through the bill again and again because I was part of the process that brought it to where it is today, I still needed to have a copy.
“If whatever we have gone through is different from what was presented, I cannot just go ahead and agree to everything, I just wanted to have a copy and flip through.
“That is why I went to protest to the chairman who was surprised that we all do not have copies and the deputy chairman told us that within five minutes from when we started, we will all have copies but that did not happen.
“I could have shared because somebody told me to go share with somebody but people around me did not have,’’ he said.
Ogun said it had been a very torturous journey and also commended the leadership of the House, the Minister of State for Petroleum, the Group Managing Director of NNPC, for working with the National Assembly relentlessly.
“PIB went through the entire process, we have the gazette copy, we went on a couple of retreats, we brought out grey areas that were again examined, we have the Executive come to brief us and we let them know things we are likely to change and they told us the implication of those changes” Ogun added.
