The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment has frowned at the recently enacted Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) stating that it tampered significantly with some statutory roles of the Ministry.
The Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo disclosed this yesterday while inaugurating a technical committee to review the Act in Abuja. Adebayo said: “As a ministry, some of our roles as they relate to the administration of the pre-shipment inspection and the Nigerian Export Supervision Scheme (NESS) had hitherto been under the Ministry of Finance, and are now under the new commission in the Petroleum Industry Act.”
He stressed the need for the ministry to leverage the window provided by the review of the Act to enable it to play a more significant role under the scheme in line with its mandate.
He has directed the committee to review the PIA 2021 and its implications on the statutory responsibilities of the ministry. Essentially, the technical committee headed by the Director, Legal Services at the Ministry, Muhammed Danjuma Alhassan will among other things, review the PIA and its implication for the oil and gas export permit being issued to exporters by CED.
