IoD seeks stakeholders’ support for viable energy sector

The Institute of Directors (IoD) Nigeria has pledged to collaborate with all stakeholders through its energy and power committee to ensure that Nigeria achieves a viable energy sector.

The institute said this was necessary, especially with the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), adding that as representatives of the private sector, they must support government’s efforts in sanitising the industry and making it attractive to the right investors.

President and Chairman of Governing Council, IoD, Dr. Ije Jidenma, made the remark during a national stakeholders’ forum, organised by the institute on the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021, with the theme ‘Petroleum Industry Act, Governance and the Investor’.

Noting that while the PIA might not be a perfect piece of legislation at the moment, she urged that all stakeholders must ensure that through it, a conducive business environment for investors and consumers is achieved.

Highlighting some of its benefits, she said the PIA introduces revolutionary and pertinent changes to the governance, administrative, regulatory, policy formation and fiscal framework of the Nigerian petroleum industry.

According to her, expectations are very high that adherence to the extant provisions of the Act will bring about and ensure transparency in the industry, strengthen the governing institutions and attract investments, amongst other laudable objectives.

Among the panelists, Managing Partner, ENR Advisory, Gbite Adeniji, said the PIA, which does not give room for independent government agencies, has created potential for inter-agency conflict on environmental and competition regulations.

He also said the Act sidestepped the opportunity for the creation of an engine room for creative thinking and effective sector supervision in the office of the Minister of Petroleum Resources.

According to him, the dual regulatory model is problematic with implications for cost, time and efficiency to investors, consumers and the nation.

“The mind of the nation is not sufficiently settled around governance and the issue is less about the law than about the culture of governance in Nigeria,” he said.

Deputy Managing Director, Falcon Corporation, Audrey Joe-Ezigbo, said the PIA would send a strong signal of the optimisation and build up of the petroleum value chain.