Senate To Begin Debate On Pib This Week

BEVERLY HILLS, October 31, (THEWILL) – The Senate is scheduled to commence the debate on the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill, otherwise known as PIB, as well as the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) this week.

THEWILL gathered that the Senate will also commence debate on a bill to amend the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Act, among 24 other bills slated for the week.

The report of the Senate Committee on INEC will be laid by its Chairman, Senator Abu Kyari, on Tuesday , while the debate on MTEF will take place on Wednesday .

The major attention would however be concentrated on the PIB whose debate had been suspended since April as a result of power struggle between the National Assembly and the presidency.

The PIB had been in the National Assembly for almost a decade has now been broken into different bills with lots of dissenting views by the lawmakers.

Besides the power struggle between the executive and legislature on the bill, senators from the Niger Delta had advocated the suspension of consideration of the bill due to fears that non-inclusion of host community fund in the bill might aggravate the tension in the region.

On MTEF debate, which was suspended last week following missing information in the document sent to the National Assembly would now be debated following the provision of the required information by Ministers of Budget and Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, and his counterpart in the Ministry of Finance, Kemi Adeosun.

Eight other bills, sent to the Senate by the House of Representatives for concurrence, have also been slated for consideration next Thursday while thirteen reports from various committees have also been planned for consideration.

They include: A bill for an Act to Repeal the Foreign Exchange (Monitoring and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act; A bill to Repeal and Re-enact the Customs Act; A bill to Establish the Public Private Partnership Regulatory Commission; A bill for an Act to provide for a Legal Framework for the Cassava Inclusion Policy of the Federal Government to Encourage Cassava Farming and Other Matters and A bill for an Act to provide for the Establishment of Federal Entrepreneurship Centres at Local Government Area.

Story by Oputah David