IT will take President Muhammadu Buhari’s political will and patriotism on the part of the National Assembly to pass the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), experts at the National Petroleum and Power Policy forum in Port Harcourt said.

Speaking yesterday at the event organised by the Emerald Energy Institute of the University of Port Harcourt, they noted that the lack of political will and legislative inertia were responsible for the non-passage of the bill.

The speakers included a former director, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Osten Olorunsola, a former company secretary, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Prof. Yinka Omorogbe and Vice Chairman of Emerald Energy Resources, Dr. Jude Amaefule. Stressing the need for another round of consultations with critical stakeholders, Olorunsola, who headed the technical arm of the committee set up by the former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, to re-work the PIB in 2012, said the bill he worked on was not what was eventually submitted to the National Assembly.

“While what we worked on was submitted to former President Goodluck Jonathan, what was eventfully presented to the National Assembly was different,” he said. “At the point of submission to the National Assembly, there were a lot of alterations and I could see them because what we did was in the public domain. “A lot of investors were asking for improved fiscals, which was understandable because they wanted more.

But the question is, how competitive is it? If Nigeria feels it is comfortable enough, then I think we should just go with it. “What you do not want is a set of fiscals that drive investments away because if investments are driven away, the ultimate aim of expanding the industry and using the proceeds to expand the non-oil sector is completely defeated.”

The former DPR boss also said the Host Community Fund provided for in the PIB, which is largely misconstrued by the frontier basins in the northern part of the country, are issues that must be constructively engaged to erase the mutual suspicion the passage of the bill has caused among lawmakers.

On her part, Omorogbe said if Buhari has the political will, the bill could be passed in record time. She also declared that the version passed by the Seventh House of Representatives was good enough and could serve as a start-off point for the reform process in the oil and gas sector.

“The bill that the Reps worked on, and I have a copy of, is very close to what we had originally. They cleaned up a lot of the holes that were in the bill sent to them. I do not think it is such a bad draft,” she said.

Omorogbe warned that Nigeria cannot afford to wait another 10 or more years to pass the bill, warning that such will inflict irreparable damage on the economy. She added: “We need to move on with any of the versions.

What we need is a responsible National Assembly that will actually read through, put the interest of Nigerians above every other interest. I believe that, like the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, President Buhari will completely support the passage. We must remember that those who do not want the bill passed are still here and are not sleeping.”

However, Amaefule advocated the breaking down of the PIB into smaller sections for easy implementation. According to him, “at the very worst, if these legislators cannot handle what we have, let them take the fiscal side of this bill, pass it and look at re-organising the NNPC as a different bill, because we put a lot into that pack.

“We need to modularise that bill so that oil companies and investors would be certain of what they are putting their money into and how they can recoup it.

Reserve replenishment is dropping and if there is no exploration, you do not have reserve. “You may be wishfully thinking, I have it in the ground, but you must spend the money. We have not been spending the money because of the uncertainties surrounding the PIB. Instead of that gigantic bill, if nothing else, let us compartmentalise it – the fiscal regime, NNPC reorganisation and others. We can handle the bill in phases.”