There are indications that the Federal Government would absorb workers of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) into the new petroleum industry regulator to be set up by the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB).
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu made this known at a roundtable on understanding the PIGB, organised by the Nigeria Natural Resource Charter (NNRC) and the Media Initiative on Transparency in the Extractive Industry (MITEI).
The Minister who was represented by his Senior Technical Adviser on Policy and Regulation, Adegbite Adeniji explained that DPR and the PPPRA would be scrapped and merged with the Petroleum Regulatory Commission (PRC) as stipulated by the Bill.
“Where there are gaps in the manpower in there, it provides an opportunity for people to be appointed from outside because, again, you want to put in new ideas, fresh legs in the whole process.
“In that process, you preserve the jobs, and you also attract a pathway for the employment of other skills from outside to help energise the new system you are trying to build. We are taking the entire petroleum industry into an entity that is statutorily independent, from political interference.
“The way the minister can interfere is through policy directions. The policy directives must emanate from published policies. That is to say this is the policy of the country and it must be a consistent policy.”
Independent reports that the "PIGB seeks to unbundle the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and provide for the establishment of Federal Ministry of Petroleum Incorporated, Nigerian Petroleum Regulatory Commission, Nigerian Petroleum Assets Management Company, and National Petroleum Company and Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF).
The law will, among other things, ensure the establishment of a new regulatory agency known as Nigeria Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NPRC) which would take over the functions of Petroleum Inspectorate (PI), the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA).
Some of the identifiable changes proposed by the National Assembly report were for a slim, focused, yet robust framework for effective institutional governance of the Nigerian petroleum industry."
