By John Ikani
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, says President Muhammadu Buhari would on Thursday speak extensively on the Act which would help to develop the oil and gas sector.
The minister disclosed this while responding to questions on the three per cent allocation to host communities in the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) signed into law by the President.
“As a country, we have a direction that we are going to. So, right now, if you talk about three per cent in the Act, for us in the Niger Delta, I will ask, three per cent of something? Is that not better than 100 per cent of what you don’t know?
“What we want to achieve is the philosophy behind this bill which is to attract investors to Nigeria, to produce as much as this crude on the ground as possible. That is what we want to achieve.
“We must measure everything against this philosophy, so, as a Niger Delta, if activities are not going on, nothing happens because the investors look at the numbers and see if they are adding up for them to operate,” he said.
On petrol price, he said that with the PIB signed into law, the sector had been fully deregulated.
He, however, explained that the deregulation implementation would not be immediate.
Sylva explained that products would be sold based on market dictated prices, so price would be shouldered by everyone with the signing of the PIB.
He noted that government was mindful of the hardship and difficulties it might bring to Nigerians.
“That is why, we will not jump to implement it, the implementation framework will take care of how we are going to alleviate the sufferings that this might bring.
“We will work together with labour to ensure that there is a framework that will allow us to implement deregulation,” he added.
