In what can be regarded as a split decision along party lines between the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in the Senate on Thursday passed the conference committee report of the Senate and House of Representatives on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), 2021.
The passage of the long awaited legal framework to guide the money-spinning petroleum sector followed the approval of the recommendations contained in its conference committee report on a Bill for and Act to Provide Legal, Governance, Regulatory and Fiscal Framework for the Nigerian Petroleum Industry, the Development of Host Communities and for Related Matters, 2021.
The upper chamber adopted three per cent as contribution to the Host Communities Development Fund recommended by the conference committee.
While the Senate passed three per cent for host communities in the PIB, the House of Representatives jerked the figure up to five per cent in its version.
But certain PDP Senators from the South-South such as Seriake Dickson and George Thompson Sekibo, protested the retention of three per cent for host communities in the conference committee report.
According to the federal lawmakers, their decision to speak against the recommendation of the conference committee was to register their support in a way that promotes nothing but the interest of the region.
Sekibo while coming under an order, intimated the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, and other Senators of his decision to abstain from voting, as doing so he said, “will put my neck on the line.”
The conference committee report was, thereafter, passed after its consideration by the upper chamber.
