Bill For Oil And Gas Export Zone Scales Second Reading
Abuja, 10th July 2014
The Senate, yesterday in Abuja Nigeria, passed for second reading a bill on the oil and gas export free zone.
The upper chamber also pushed the bill seeking to establish the National Bio-safety Management Agency (NBMA) beyond the crucial second reading.
The oil and gas export free zone bill, if passed, seeks to amend the oil and gas export free zone authority act to make consequential provisions to the act for greater effectiveness and efficiency.
The bill was subsequently referred to the Committee on Trade and Establishment for further legislative work.
Sponsored by Senator Odion Ugbesia, the bill also seeks the introduction of the right of workers in the zone to join trade unions and bargain collectively which the principal Act abridged since inception of the free zones.
He stated that free zones all over the world are instrumental in boosting industrial and economic growth as a result of which the federal government established the Onne Oil and Gas free zones to, among other things, provide greater level of foreign direct investment, technology transfer, manpower development, employment opportunities and greater economic self-reliance.
“Our free trade zones are far from achieving the purpose for which they were established and there are serious doubt as to whether Nigeria has indeed benefitted from the Onne Oil and Gas free zone beyond the benefit accruable to an industrial area”Odion-Ugbesia
which is the result of weak regulatory framework guiding the operations of free zones in Nigeria,” Ugbesia told senators.
He further explained that the most attractive feature of a free zone anywhere in the world is the tax holiday which investors enjoy as incentive and encouragement for investment and this amendment provides just that. Meanwhile, the bio-safety agencies bill seeks to address the national bio-safety requirements and regulate the practice of modern biotechnology and genetically modified organisms (GMO) to ensure safety to the environment and human health.
In a lead debate, Domingo Obende (APC-Edo) said the bill would apply to safety administration of any activity of importing and exporting GMOs, and the products derived from it into and out of the country.
Source: Leadership Newspaper