The Senate and the House of Representatives will commence debate of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) as from next week. Senate President, Bukola Saraki said this in Abuja at a Business Environment Roundtable on the economy hosted by the National Assembly yesterday March 21st. Saraki said this has become necessarily to gain speed in the consideration and passage of the PIB and to prevent dissipation of time, energy and scarce resources that was prevalent in the past.
“We have said that the present National Assembly would not be business as usual. More importantly is the presence of the Honourable Speaker represented by the Chief Whip of the House at this event. The message from this is that the National Assembly – both Senate and House of Representatives, is working very closely together in the 8th National Assembly and as such some of these processes would not be bogged down in any of the chambers. We are both committed. We have both come out with our agenda and as part of this commitment, you will all see next week, when we lay the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill. You will see that the Bill we are going to lay in the House is the same Bill we are going to lay in the Senate because for the first time, we are committed to work together as one to achieve results,” he said.