South Sudan to revise petroleum act, says minister

JUBA — South Sudan has started consultations aimed at revising and reforming its Petroleum Act 2012, an official said on Thursday.

The Petroleum Minister, Puot Kang Chol said the new move seeks to regulate the downstream operations of the country’s oil sector.

The current law, he said, only covers upstream operations of the oil sector.

“If you look at the current Petroleum Act that we have, it does not cover much the downstream, where we talk basically about things to do with petroleum economics, depots, petrol stations, and now we will be coming up with oil refineries, we must be regulated by laws,” explained Chol.

The minister made the remarks during a consultative meeting held in Juba.

According to the minister, inconsistences within the oil sector should be addressed during the consultative meetings organized by the National Constitutional Amendment Committee (NCAC), the body that has been mandated to supervise reforms in the economic and governance sectors.

Moses Makur Deng, the Governor of the Bank of South Sudan, said that the current Petroleum Act was imposed on the country, adding that the revised law must address environmental issues as well as community welfare.

“The current Act is superficial and was imposed on South Sudanese, so I am warning this time that this dimension must be taken care of properly, we should not be seen as receiving anything from anywhere we should own the laws,” he told Xinhua.

The NCAC chairperson, Gichira Kibara said amendments within the oil sector be informed by real needs and must protect the country’s interests.