The Senate yesterday frowned on statement by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu over the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).
Spokesperson of the Senate, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi in a statement said the claim by Kachikwu that the disagreement between the Senate and House of Representatives was responsible for the delay in the passage of the bill was totally wrong.
The Senate said Kachikwu’s statement was unfortunate, “because the Minister was only demonstrating lack of knowledge of how a bicameral legislature functions.
“It is funny to read a report that the Minister went to far away Houston to say that there was a disagreement between the Senate and House of Representatives over the PIB, which has delayed its passage and that he has been speaking with the House to take the version of the bill being worked on by the Senate.
“Again, it is not unusual for there to be differences in the contents of a bill on the same issue being worked on by the two chambers of the National Assembly. There is already an inbuilt legislative process for reconciling the two versions of a bill through what is called harmonization process by the Conference Committee of both chambers. So, there is no need for a minister to dabble into the process.
“Kachikwu is just jumping into the issue at this point because he knew we will in the next few weeks pass the PIB and we think the remarks he made on the issue was an unnecessary diversion aimed at creating needless controversy.”
