Nigeria’s federal government announced, Monday, the official scrapping and dissolution of DPR, the Department of Petroleum Resources, PPPRA, Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, and PEF, the Petroleum Equalisation Fund.
While relieving the chief executives of these agencies of their appointments, government assured that workers in the agencies would be protected.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, stated this while speaking on the side-lines of the inauguration of the boards of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority and the Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission in Abuja.
Sylva explained that with the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act, the NPRA and NURC had taken over the functions of the DPR, PPPRA and PEF.
Sylva stated: “The law states that all the assets and even the staff of the DPR are to be invested on the commission and also in the authority. So that means the DPR doesn’t exist anymore.
“And, of course, the law specifically repeals the DPR Act, the Petroleum Inspectorate Act, the Petroleum Equalisation Fund Act and the PPPRA Act. The law specifically repeals them. It is very clear that those agencies do not exist anymore.”
He stated that the process for aligning the workers of the defunct agencies with the new regulatory bodies had already commenced, as the staff had to be rationalized.
