The Bayelsa State Deputy Governor, Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, Monday, says the role of state governments had been deliberately whittled down in the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), which implementation is expected to commence this August.
Ewhrudjakpo, who disclosed this when he received a 15-member delegation from the Bayelsa Amazons Advocacy Campaign Group in Government House, Yenagoa,lamented that governments in the oil and gas-producing states of the Niger Delta region had virtually been reduced to mere observers.
Noting that there were a lot of lacunas in the PIA which clearly put the oil-bearing areas at a disadvantage,Ewhrudjakpo contended that the prominent shortcomings in the Act, as passed by the National Assembly and assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari, had denied the state governments their full participation in the implementation of the PIA.
He added:”We have some lacunas in the PIA law. You can’t deprive a man of his right and expect him not to complain. Considering the way that law is couched, they have actually reduced the role of the oil bearing states to that of a ‘siddon looker’.I’m really worried that those who made the law have, as usual, undermined the state in terms of exploration and management of oil resources. And you know that anything that does not have a legal backing, lacks the potency for its enforcement.”
Responding to some of the requests made by the BAACG, the deputy governor assured them that government would set up a committee to monitor and follow-up the implementation of the PIA in the state.
Ewhrudjakpo, who called on the group to properly articulate their agenda for gender equity, promised that the interest of women in Bayelsa would be adequately protected in line with the provisions of the PIA.