The Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment has called for collaboration between the ministry and stakeholders in the mainstream petroleum industry to improve regulatory compliance in Nigeria.

FMITI’s permanent secretary, Nura Abba Rimi, made the call at a one-day stakeholders’ sensitisation workshop in Port Harcourt on Thursday.

Mr Rimi said the workshop was to build ties among other ministries, agencies and business entities in the country.

“This will achieve regulatory compliance in business entities and build customers’ confidence in Nigeria’s trade measurement system,” he said.

The official called on stakeholders to comply with the regulatory metrology such as calibration, verification,  measurement standard,  traceability,  and hierarchy of standards to stop illegal operations in the sector.

Also, Geoffrey Jwan, the deputy director of the ministry’s Oil and Gas Measurement Division, Weights and Measures Department, mentioned some challenges regulators face in enforcing legal metrology compliance in the midstream sector.

Mr Jwan added that regulatory compliance and funding were also among the challenges, saying that functions overlapping sometimes raised conflict between the sister regulatory ministries and agencies.

He explained that in Nigeria, weights and measures happened to be the only one globally operating as an intra-ministerial department.

Mr Jwan called on the National Assembly to review the main law of the Weight and Measures Act.

He said the law was last reviewed in 1979 to march with the current practice and strengthen penalties for defaulters of the regulations.

Comfort Ajayi, the South-South regional director of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, pledged the Agency’s support to the FMITI.

She encouraged stakeholders not to see the Department of Weight and Measures as a burden but as a solution to transparency, accountability and profitability in doing their business.

(NAN)