The Senate has demanded transparency in the activities of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency .It was learnt on Tuesday that the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Upstream) had been engaged in a series of meetings with the NNPC, the PPPRA and multinational oil companies ahead of the resubmission of the Petroleum Industry Bill. The bill seeks the reforming of the nations oil sector.Chairman of the committee, Senator Emmanuel Paulker, had made the call for transparency during a meeting attended by some oil companies, including Shell Petroleum Development Company, Agip and Total.Paulker, said the committee had been mandated to ensure that the high cost of doing business in the sector was reduced to an acceptable level.According to him, the Senate is determined to remove the secrecy attached to operations in the nations oil sector.He said, "Let me state two major issues which our committee will pay serious attention to. The first is the issue of industry cost. The committee is aware that over time, the cost of doing business in the petroleum industry has grown to become one of the highest around the whole world."This is in spite of the fact that the factor often cited to justify such high costs are no longer in existence."The committee is aware that the industry is traditionally considered to be opaque, secretive and guarded. This is so especially with regard to the operations of the policy and regulatory agencies as well as even major oil companies both foreign and indigenous."I will, therefore, urge everyone charged with regulatory, policy or operational responsibility to cooperate fully with this committee in the discharge of its functions."Let us wave goodbye to hide and seek, to disobedience to lawful requests for information and invitations and to such other irritable attitudes that often generate rancor and acrimony."He noted that the petroleum industry was at a crossroads and needed an urgent attention since it was the backbone of the economy.Paulker said the sector was not only to generate the vast proportion of government revenue, it should provide adequate power supply and employment for the nations unemployed youths.He said, "The challenges facing the industry today are enormous. Some of them are widespread uncertainty about the state of the ongoing reforms in the industry with the non-passage of the PIB; slow-down of investment in virtually all aspects of the industry; impediments to the vigorous implementation of the Nigerian Content Act; low growth of our oil and gas reserves; confusion surrounding the renewal of leases held by some oil companies; problems surrounding divestment of assets to Nigerian companies as well as environmental and community issues."All these constitute major challenges to the smooth operation of the industry and the delivery of expected dividends to our country."
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