PIB: President Should Not Award Oil Blocs, Says El-Rufai …As NEITI Seeks Transparency In Award of Licences

Former Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister, Malam Nasir Ahmed El-Rufai has said in order to entrench transparency in the oil industry; the discretionary powers of the president to award oil blocs should be curtailed.

 El-Rufai who spoke yesterday at the final public hearing on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), organised by the House ad hoc committee on the PIB explained that Nigerians should be given the opportunity to freely bid for available oil blocs instead of arbitrary awarding to select individuals by the president.

 “Today, Nigeria has a track record of attracting a billion dollars in fees from frequency spectrum. If we can sell something, which is scarce, like the spectrum for that kind of money, why can’t we bid out oil blocs? I think you should put in the PIB a requirement that every oil bloc in Nigeria, whether onshore of offshore, be publicly advertised, and everywhere in the world – Nigerians and foreigners – be given the opportunity to bid for it, and whoever bids the highest price should win, even if you have some provisions that Nigerians can win, if they bid 10 or 20 percent lower. But no one, not even the President should have the discretion to allocate oil blocs without rules”.

The deputy national secretary of the yet to be registered All Progressive Congress (APC) argued that there should be a government framework that encourages independence of the regulators in the sector, insisting that the regulators should not be made to report to the minister of petroleum.

 According to him, “I think that as you are doing this legislation we must have independent regulators. Independent regulators mean that they don’t report to the minister… they are independent of the minister; the minister focuses on policy, the regulators have freedom to regulate independently without any control of the minister, which means, for instance, that we should not live in a country in which the oil bloc can be allocated based on discretion.

 Speaking in his capacity as a director of the Centre for Africa’s Progress and Prosperity (CAPP), el-Rufai suggested that the joint ventures should be incorporated and put on the stock exchange so that Nigerians can buy shares in the JVC’s. He advised that more Nigerians should be encouraged to participate in the petroleum industry.

 On the petroleum host communities’ fund (PHCF), the former minister applauded the initiative saying it is assailable but however called for a governance framework.