No Petroleum Industry Bill before Senate

Wants legal backing for refineries in creeksAGAINST the backdrop of the belief that the National Assembly would soon pass the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), Nigerians may have to wait for a long time as the Senate, at the weekend, said that the bill was not yet with the legislature.This came as some senators raised the alarm over the possibility of proliferation of arms in the country following theevents in some Arab countries.The Federal Government was also urged to accord recognition to operators of illegal refineries in the creeks as a way of addressing the crisis in the oil sector.Speaking with journalists in the National Assembly at the weekend, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Ita Enang, said the bill was presented to the Sixth National Assembly and since the life of that Assembly had elapsed, it means that the bill is no longer in the National Assembly.He said: 'That bill was introduced in the Sixth NationalAssembly and it lapsed with the Sixth Assembly. There is this rule 111 of the Senate, which says that bills can continue from session to session. That is unconstitutional. Number two, you may have heard that the bill should continue. I drew attention to rule 163, the interpretation of the standing order. The Senate is inaugurated for a period of four years. At the end of the four years, the Senate stands dissolved and every bill that is pending stands dead unless reintroduced afresh.'On arms, he said that the security agencies in Nigeria should be very alert because the arms that have not been fully spent and no more needed in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia and other countries that have just gone through a turmoil, such arms could be diverted and are capable of finding their ways into the Nigerian market where their use couldendanger the security of Nigeria.In many villages and hamlets in the Niger Delta, it is a thriving industry of small scale 'illegal distilling of petrol and diesel, which are sold in plastic containers call jerry cans.The distillers pay security agents 'protection fee' to be allowed to engage in the business.
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