Nigeria: Oil industry bill approved

Nigerian legislators had passed a long-delayed oil industry reform bill because of “intensive lobbying by interest groups”, Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala said yesterday. Foreign and Nigerian groups “benefit from the status quo either through favourable oil deals or favourable treatment by the Nigerian tax system”, she wrote in an opinion piece in the Financial Times. The proposed Petroleum Industry Bill seeks to reform the way the industry is regulated, transforming the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation into a commercial enterprise. – Bloomberg