THE GAMBIA PETROLEUM COMMISSION

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Inauguration Meeting of the Legislative Review Committee

It is trite that the foundation of an effectively functioning institution is its policies and legislations. With the support of the African Development Bank, through the Africa Legal Support Facility, a comprehensive review of all the legislations that have an impact on the petroleum sector was conducted and recommendations were made on how to harmonize them to reduce ambiguities, gaps, and inconsistencies. Furthermore, an IMF support mission, between 2018 and 2023 conducted a further review of the fiscal regime for the Petroleum Sector and came up with recommendations to be implemented.

Now that we have the recommendations, the next step is to implement them through the amendment and development of some key sector legislations, including the following:

  1. Petroleum Exploration, Development, and Production Act, 2004;
  2. Income and Value Added Tax, 2012;
  3. Environment Regulations etc.; and
  4. Petroleum Revenue Management Bill, 2024
 
The Petroleum Commission Act was also passed in 2021 and the said Act makes provision for promulgation of various legislations. The Act further mandates the Commission “to prepare or cause to be prepared any relevant documentation including drafts of any required legislation, necessary to give the Commission the power to regulate the upstream and midstream sectors in accordance with the Act”.

Based on this, the Commission held a Legislative Committee Inaugural Meeting on the 30th of January 2024 at the Petroleum House to commence the drafting of the above-mentioned legislations and prepare the drafts of the legislations listed below, which will subsequently be submitted to the Minister of Petroleum and Energy:

  1. Local Content Regulations;
  2. Data Management Regulations; and
  3. Fees and Charges Regulations;

The meeting was attended by personnel from key stakeholders as per the Terms of Reference, for the coordination of the process, preparation, and review of the prepared legislations.

The Director General of the Petroleum Commission, Mr. Jerreh Barrow in his introductory remarks highlighted that the work being done is important in enhancing the investment environment and considered it as constituting the foundation for the development of the sector.

Background information and a presentation of the TOR were given by Deputy Director, Kanni Touray to the Legislative Review Committee. The TOR was amended by the members and adopted by DOF, GNPC, and seconded by the Head of Legal GRA. Ms. Touray also presented the road map review for the said activity which will be conducted in the next 180 days (6 months) effective 1st February 2024.