The House of Representatives has scheduled the second reading of the new Petroleum Industry Bill for Today (Tuesday) .
The Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, had made this known at the plenary on Wednesday.
The House of Representatives had on October 8, 2020, faulted the Minister of State for Petroleum Resource, Timipre Sylva, who said the National Assembly would suspend consideration of the PIB till after passage of the 2021 Appropriation Bill.
Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr Benjamin Kalu, had while addressing journalists after the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), laid the 2021 budget proposal before a joint session of the National Assembly, dismissed Sylva’s claim as false.
Sylva had earlier in the week said deliberations on the PIB by the National Assembly had been shifted to the first quarter of next year.
On the sidelines of the Joint Executive-Legislature Leadership Retreat at the Presidential Villa Banquet Hall in Abuja, Sylva had told journalists that the National Assembly said they needed to work on the 2021 budget.
This, according to the minister, was one reason why deliberations on the PIB had to be shifted, adding that the lawmakers explained that the 2021 Appropriation Bill needed to be ready before January next year.
Sylva had expressed the belief that the bill would be passed in the first quarter of next year because there was consensus around the passage of the PIB.
The leadership of the National Assembly had earlier on September 28, 2020, pledged to accelerate legislative action on the PIB, which Buhari transmitted to the parliament about three weeks ago, stressing that it would be treated simultaneously with the 2021 budget.
President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, had stated this during a National Assembly joint leadership meeting on the PIB, with top officials in the Executive including Sylva.