Nigerians should be happy Buhari did not sign PIGB, says Enang

Senior Special Assistant on National Assembly Matters (Senate) to the President, Ita Enang, has said rather than express displeasure, Nigerians should be grateful that President Muhammadu Buhari did not sign the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB) into law.

Enang stated this when he featured on News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja yesterday, insisting that if the President had signed the bill, it would have made some agencies so rich that funds they would be collecting from the industry monthly would exceed what would accrue to six states monthly.

He said Buhari felt that the PIGB in its current form would have created another ‘masquerade’ that would be a liability and minus to other tiers of government.

By masquerade, Enang was referring to the provision of the bill that allows the Petroleum Industry Regulatory Commission (PIRC) to retain as much as 10 per cent of monthly revenues generated in the oil industry.

He said that the President’s position was that in addition to other sources of funding available to the commission, it would be collecting billions of Naira monthly that would equal federal allocation to about seven states.

“The president also said that the PIGB provided for the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF) to take five per cent of the value of petroleum products consumed by Nigerians every month,” he said.

Enang also explained that Buhari felt that giving the commission and the PEF so much money would make them richer than the Federal Government and become a government within government.

He advised Nigerians contesting the President’s decision on the Bill to look at the budgets of agencies in the oil sector, including the Department for Petroleum Resources (DPR) and Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA).

He said that they would discover that the agencies already had several sources of revenue, including licence fees, grants and appropriation from the National Assembly.

The presidential aide further argued that reserving another 10 or five per cent for them as proposed in the PIGB amounted to duplication, which any patriotic President would not endorse.

He advised Nigerians to show more interest and be more active in the PIGB than the international oil companies (OICs).