By Moses Patience Chat
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, has rejected a motion seeking to investigate the dilapidated condition of the nation’s refineries, despite spending several trillions of naira on their maintenance.
The motion was moved by Karimi Steve, the All Progressives Congress (APC) Senator of Kogi West, at the plenary on Wednesday.
In the motion, Mr. Steve prayed the Senate to establish an ad-hoc committee to investigate all contracts awarded for the rehabilitation of all four Federal Government-owned refineries between 2010 and 2023.
He also advised that the committee should visit all the government refineries to ascertain their conditions, prevent any attempt to waste resources, stop any form of corruption and also interrogate authorities in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and officers of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for their role in the failure of the refineries to produce oil.
Mr Steve added that the committee, when constituted, should invite managers of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited and other petrol agencies to present their plans on Green Energy Sources in line with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change to the Senate for possible review.
He noted that Nigeria had spent N11.35 trillion on the renovation of refineries from 2010 till date and has also spent over N6 trillion between 2010 and 2020 on fuel subsidies as a result of the country’s low refining capacity and that almost twice the amount has also been spent on rehabilitating refineries in Port Harcourt, Kaduna and Warri between the same period under review.
Senator Steve noted that despite the moribund condition, the operating cost of the country’s refineries between 2010 and 2020 is estimated at N4.8 trillion.
The Senator explained that he was disturbed that the Port Harcourt Refinery Company is still not functioning despite the Nigerian government carrying out rehabilitation projects in the refinery for seven years between 2013 – 2019 at an estimated cost of over N12 billion.
He also said over N28 billion had been spent on revamping the Warri Refinery and Petrochemical Company Limited from 2014 to 2019.
He added that over N2 billion have also been spent on the rehabilitation of the Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Company in the past ten years, but it remains unproductive.
However, the motion and prayers were rejected following the decision of the majority of the senators who spoke on it. The Senate President, therefore, announced that the motion would be stepped down until relevant ministers have been appointed by President Bola Tinubu.
