more news4 May 2011 10:23
http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/news/21398-senate-assures-on-passage-of-pib
Senate assures on passage of PIB
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Written by Ayodele Adesanmi, Abuja
Wednesday, 04 May 2011
The Senate has assured stakeholders that it will ensure the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) before the end of the sixth Senate whose tenure remains less than a month.
It also informed that it would conclude all outstanding activities and ensure that it leaves a clean slate as much as possible for the seventh Senate.
The chairman, Senate Committee on Information and Media, Senator Ayogu Eze, told National Assembly reporters that , “I’m aware that efforts are being made for the details of the 2011 Appropriation to be finalised so that the president can sign it and possibly come up with supplementary appropriation which the government has already hinted and we are also mindful of fulfilling our promise of passing the Freedom of Information Bill(FOI) and send it to the president before the sixth National Assembly winds down.”
He added: “We are also interested in making sure that we start work on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) which as you know, is a bill that all Nigerians look forward to. This is to ensure that we liberalise that crucial arm of our economy and bring in the private sector and to remove the restrictions of government control and to subject the operations of the oil sector to market economy.
“There has been apprehension about the passage of that bill and I think a lot of people were not quite right in thinking that members of the National Assembly are not patriotic enough as to want to give that bill accelerated treatment. What happened was that a lot of people thought as they always do, that they love Nigeria than the rest.And they were just sending text messages that are denigrating to the senate. But I don’t know whether the House of Representatives received the same text messages”.
On the one-week recess, Ayogu said this became necessary because the senate was scanty and was getting scantier because “about five committee members were involved in the offshore trade conference in Texas, USA, and a number of senators were billed to travel and to come back over the weekend and we thought that since we will need the number to do some of the things we need to do, it will be proper to shut down and give everybody the opportunity to go for the conference and come back.”
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