NASS expects Buhari to re-submit PIB, says Paulker

THE immediate past Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (upstream sector), Senator Emmanuel Paulker, has disclosed that the National Assembly is expecting that President Muhammadu Buhari would re-submit the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) to it for processing and enactment.

Addressing journalists yesterday after submitting his governorship nomination form to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) national secretariat, he stated that ‎the PDP could not afford to be partisan and skew the process of its primaries towards a pre-meditated outcome because of happenings in the state.

Paulker noted that the tenure of the 7th National Assembly came to an end when work on the PIB got to the final stage.

He said: “A lot of discourse has taken place on the issue concerning the PIB. As the chairman of upstream, I had the privilege of chairing that committee. The PIB is a very important bill and don’t loose sight of the fact that the PIB was an executive bill. And the 7th Senate has elapsed and that means either the executive re-introduces the bill to the National Assembly or it comes through a private bill. But most importantly because of the nature of the bill, I expect the present administration will re-introduce the bill to the 8th Senate for consideration”

“A lot of work was done on the PIB, it was at the stage of passing Third Reading when the life of the last Assembly lapsed. Because of the importance of the bill, the present administration will definitely re-introduce the bill consideration by the National Assembly.”