28 November 2011, Sweetcrude, ABUJA – The possibility of passing the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) into law is dim as there is no such document before the National Assembly for consideration, according to the chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Senator Solomon Ita Enang.
The PIB, sent to the Senate by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2008, lapsed with the Sixth National Assembly on June 5, 2011, he said.
According to Enang, a three-term member of the House of Representatives before he joined the Senate, “There is no Petroleum Industry Bill in the National Assembly and in particular, in the Senate because, that Bill was introduced during the Sixth National Assembly and it lapsed with the Sixth Assembly.”
Explaining further, he said: “The Senate is inaugurated for a period of four years. At the end of the four years, the Senate stands dissolved and any thing that is pending stands dead unless it is re-introduced.”
“Therefore, if the President wants it, he has to send a letter, re-introducing it. The President has to send a covering letter, which he will attach to the Bill he wants because on the Bill that was earlier sent, there may be need for adjustments and some alterations, after all, they did some public hearings on the Bill. They would have known areas which will not fly.”
