News
PIGB: FG to scrap, PPPRA, DPR — Kachikwu
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Mr. Ibe Kachikwu has allayed fears over the fate of workers of the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory, PPPRA, stating that workers of both agencies will be absorbed into the new petroleum industry regulator to be set up by the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill, PIGB. Speaking at a Round table on understanding the PIGB, organised by the Nigeria Natural Resource Charter, NNRC and the Media Initiative on Transparency in the Extractive Industry, MITEI, Kachikwu said that DPR and the PPPRA will be scrapped and merged into the Petroleum Regulatory Commission, PRC, as stipulated by the Bill.
Kachikwu, who was represented by his Senior Technical Adviser on Policy and Regulation, Mr. Adegbite Adeniji, also stated that it would not be business as usual as key performance indicators, KPI, would be set for the Board, management and other employees, adding that any official found wanting in the discharge in his or duties would be sanctioned and shown the exit.
He said that the scrapping of the DPR and the PPPRA, apart from ensuring that no one is sacked, would provide an opportunity for new persons to be employed into the new entity to be set up, especially as new ideas are sought to fill in gaps that might exist in the company.
He said, “Where they are gaps in the manpower in there, it provides an opportunity for people to be appointed from outside, because again, you want to put in new ideas, fresh legs in the whole process. In that process, you preserve the jobs, and you also attract a pathway for the employment of other skills from outside to help energise the new system you are trying to build.”
Kachikwu said the Board and management of the new regulatory entity would be given the power to hire and fire and also given the authority to set benchmarks with which staff would be measured. He said, “At that time, it has not nothing to do with the minister, it is up to the management to retain their staff afterwards. You then have to make sure you actually meet up to task as far your job is concerned. That is how we dealt with the issue of labour.
“After that, with the mandate that each institution would have for efficiency, people there have to work and display their performance in their jobs. But at the inception, the existing jobs would be there, but then people would then have to rise up to the occasion, because those Boards that would be in those entities would be mandated statutorily to ensure efficiency in the public interest. Therefore, from that point on, you do not have a job for life. You now have to be worth that salary, that money you are paid.” Kachikwu explained that powers would now be given to the management of the entity to ensure they operate efficiently and effectively, to enable them correctly make decisions as to who would meet up with the requirements for their position. He said, “Once the ball gets rolling, the question would now be if I am the manager at the helm of the institution, I would want to see who is effective and who is not. That is now the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for the Board and for the Chief Executive of the institution, to make sure he runs an effective institution.”
Continuing, the Minister said, “What the PIGB has done is to establish a single regulatory authority. What PPPRA does today is to regulate petroleum products pricing, so it is almost like an economic regulator for the downstream. What the PIGB creates is the Petroleum Regulatory Commission, which now undertakes technical and economic regulation of the upstream, midstream and the downstream.
“It regulates oil, gas and products. It assimilates both DPR and PPPRA, such that those two institutions would no longer exist; a new entity is created from that merger. So there would be no more PPPRA, inasmuch as there would be no more DPR. We would have a new regulator that covers the whole fields. The idea is this, if you are a regulator and you do not have access to all information in the industry, you cannot be effective; which is part of the reasons why our current system is not effective, because they are split among two or three agencies. But when you merge them and you create one and all the different regulatory powers now rest on that entity, then you would now start to have a platform on which to further regulate.”
Kachikwu further explained that the new law is trying to build a more muscular regulator, while he warned that it would be dangerous if competent people were not engaged to run the organisation. He said, “We cannot sacrifice the future of the country on the altar of incompetence. This is where we have to be watchful, so that the hiring process into that entity must be done in a manner that it gives clarity to all that things are been done in national interest. “We are taking the entire petroleum industry into an entity that is statutorily independent, from political interference. The way the Minister can interfere is through policy directions. The policy directives must emanate from published policies. That is say this is the policy of the country and it must be a consistent policy.”
A new technology transfer agreement between the Nigeria–China Strategic Partnership (NCSP) and the Presidential Implementation Committee on Technology Transfer (PICTT) is expected to open more job opportunities, improve local skills, and expand access to advanced technology for ordinary Nigerians.
In a press statement reaching Vanguard on Friday, the MoU aims to strengthen industrial development, support local content, and create clearer pathways for Nigerians to benefit from China’s growing investments in the country.
PICTT Chairman, Dr Dahiru Mohammed, said the partnership will immediately begin coordinated programmes that support local participation in infrastructure and industrial projects.
Special Adviser to the President on Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr John Uwajumogu, said the deal will help attract high value investments that can stimulate job creation and strengthen Nigeria’s economy.
NCSP Head of International Relations, Ms Judy Melifonwu, highlighted that Nigerians stand to gain from expanded STEM scholarships, technical training, access to modern technology, and collaboration across key sectors including steel, agriculture, automobile parks, and cultural industries.
The NCSP Director-General reaffirmed the organisation’s commitment to measurable results, noting that the partnership with PICTT will prioritise initiatives that deliver direct national impact.
The MoU signals a new phase of Nigeria–China cooperation focused on practical delivery, local content, and opportunities that improve everyday livelihoods.
EU regulators launched an antitrust investigation into Meta Platforms on Thursday over its rollout of artificial intelligence features in its WhatsApp messenger that would block rivals, hardening Europe’s already tough stance on Big Tech. The move, reported earlier by Reuters and the Financial Times, is the latest action by European Union regulators against large technology firms such as Amazon and Alphabet’s Google as the bloc seeks to balance support for the sector with efforts to curb its expanding influence.
Europe’s tough stance – a marked contrast to more lenient U.S. regulation – has sparked an industry pushback, particularly by U.S. tech titans, and led to criticism from the administration of U. S. President Donald Trump. The European Commission said that the investigation will look into Meta’s new policy that would limit other AI providers’ access to WhatsApp, a potential boost for its own Meta AI system integrated into the platform earlier this year.
EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said the move was to prevent dominant firms from “abusing their power to crowd out innovative competitors”. She added interim measures could be imposed to block Meta’s new WhatsApp AI policy rollout. “AI markets are booming in Europe and beyond,” she said. This is why we are investigating if Meta’s new policy might be illegal under competition rules, and whether we should act quickly to prevent any possible irreparable harm to competition in the AI space.”
A WhatsApp spokesperson called the claims “baseless”, adding that the emergence of chatbots on its platforms had put a “strain on our systems that they were not designed to support”, a reference to AI systems from other providers. “Still, the AI space is highly competitive and people have access to the services of their choice in any number of ways, including app stores, search engines, email services, partnership integrations, and operating systems.” The EU was the first in the world to establish a comprehensive legal framework for AI, setting out guardrails for AI systems and rules for certain high-risk applications in the AI Act.
Meta AI, a chatbot and virtual assistant, has been built into WhatsApp’s interface across European markets since March. The Commission said a new policy fully applicable from January 15, 2026, may block competing AI providers from reaching customers via the platform. Ribera said the probe came on the back of complaints from small AI developers about the WhatsApp policy. The Interaction Company of California, which has developed AI assistant Poke.com, has taken its grievance to the EU competition enforcer. Spanish AI startup Luzia has also talked to the Commission, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
Marvin von Hagen, co-founder and CEO of The Interaction Company of California, said if Meta was allowed to roll out its new policy, “millions of European consumers will be deprived of the possibility of enjoying new and innovative AI assistants”. Meta also risks a fine of as much as 10% of its global annual turnover if found guilty of breaching EU antitrust rules.
Italy’s antitrust watchdog opened a parallel investigation in July into allegations that Meta leveraged its market power by integrating an AI tool into WhatsApp, expanding the probe in November to examine whether Meta further abused its dominance by blocking rival AI chatbots from the messaging platform. The antitrust probe is a more traditional means of investigation than the EU’s Digital Markets Act, the bloc’s landmark legislation currently used to scrutinize Amazon’s and Microsoft’s cloud services for potential curbs. Reuters
The spouses and children of billionaires inherited more wealth in 2025 than in any previous year since reporting began in 2015, according to UBS’s Billionaire Ambitions Report published on Thursday. In the 12 months to April, 91 people became billionaires through inheritance, collectively receiving $298 billion, up more than a third from 2024, the Swiss bank said. “These heirs are proof of a multi-year wealth transfer that’s intensifying,” UBS executive Benjamin Cavalli said.
The report is based on a survey of some of UBS’s super-rich clients and a database that tracks the wealth of billionaires across 47 markets in all world regions. At least $5.9 trillion will be inherited by billionaire children over the next 15 years, the bank calculates.
Most of this inheritance growth is set to take place in the United States, with India, France, Germany and Switzerland next on the list, UBS estimated. However, billionaires are highly mobile, especially younger ones, which could change that picture, it added. The search for a better quality of life, geopolitical concerns and tax considerations are driving decisions to relocate, according to the report.
In Switzerland, where $206 billion will be inherited over the next 15 years according to the bank, voters on Sunday overwhelmingly rejected 50 per cent tax on inherited fortunes of $62 million or more, after critics said it could trigger an exodus of wealthy people.
Switzerland, the UAE, the U.S. and Singapore are among billionaires’ preferred destinations, UBS’s Cavalli said. “In Switzerland, Sunday’s vote may have helped to increase the country’s appeal again,” he said. Reuters
-
News4 days agoNigeria to officially tag Kidnapping as Act of Terrorism as bill passes 2nd reading in Senate
-
News1 week agoFG launches fresh offensive against Trans-border crimes, irregular migration, ECOWAS biometric identity Card
-
News4 days agoFG’s plan to tax digital currencies may push traders to into underground financing—stakeholders
-
News4 days agoNigeria champions African-Arab trade to boost agribusiness, industrial growth
-
Economy4 days agoMAN cries out some operators at FTZs abusing system to detriment of local manufacturers
-
Finance1 week agoAfreximbank successfully closed its second Samurai Bond transactions, raising JPY 81.8bn or $527m
-
Uncategorized2 days agoChevron to join Nigeria oil licence auction, plans rig deployment in 2026
-
News4 days agoEU to support Nigeria’s war against insecurity