The age-long Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, would be reintroduced and perhaps passed very soon by the House of Representatives.
The House would also reintroduce the bill prohibiting estimated billing in the power sector to permanently end the wastefulness and unfairness created by an unreliable and arbitrary system that imposes unforeseen costs on individuals and businesses alike.
There would also be the Education Bank Bill, designed to ensure that no child is unable to get quality tertiary education in Nigeria due to a lack of funds.
Another bill to work on is also the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Bill which will serve to broaden the Local Content Act and ensure the original intent of the Act is made real.
Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, stated these in his welcome address to the members at plenary Tuesday.
It will be recalled that members on July 25, 2019, adjourned plenary and proceeded on annual vacation.
In his address, Gbajabiamila said: “I fully expect that in this session, the House of Representatives will consider important legislation such as the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB.
“I believe that we in this 9th Assembly are ideally suited to surmount the obstacles that have mitigated against passage of this essential reform legislation which is important if we are to properly address the structural, operational and policy challenges and inefficiencies in the Nigerian petroleum industry, and position the industry to best serve the interests of all the Nigerian people.
“In addition to the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, we will see the reintroduction of the of Bill prohibiting estimated billing in the power industry, intended to put a permanent end to the wastefulness and unfairness created by an unreliable and arbitrary system that imposes unforeseen costs on individuals and businesses alike, the Education Bank Bill, designed to ensure that no child in this 21st century is unable to get a quality tertiary education in Nigeria due to a lack of means and the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Bill which will serve to broaden the Local Content Act and ensure the original intent of the Act is made real in the lives of our people.”
The speaker also asked all adhoc committees of the House saddled with one assignment or the other to handover to the Standing committees by end of the month.
“All ahoc committees to wind up and handover to standing committees by September 30”, he said.
Hinting also that the House would soon receive the 2020 budget proposal from President Muhammadu Buhari, Gbajabiamila said: “Over the course of the recess, we convened two national round table discussions on reform of the budget process and on recovered assets.
”These round table sessions were intended to take a critical look at issues relating to the development, enactment, funding, implementation and evaluation of the national budget.
“The sessions provided an opportunity for institutional stakeholders from the executive and legislature to engage one another honestly on the problems of the appropriations process and the options for addressing those problems.
”It also allowed us to begin to prepare the ground for the 2020 Appropriations Bill.”
