Abbas Seeks Privatisation Of Moribund Refineries

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Abbas Tajudeen, has called for measures to turn around the losses suffered by the economy due to the non-productive state of the nation’s refineries by privatising them for better management and productivity.

Abbas said for Nigeria to avoid more wasteful years of non-performing public assets in the oil sector, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) must come up with creative ways for optimal performance.

He stated this when he received the management of the NNPCL, who paid him a courtesy visit in his office in Abuja yesterday.

The lawmaker decried the state of Nigeria’s refineries such as the one in Kaduna, which he said had been moribund for over 20 years but its staff were maintained, paid and promoted.

“I am from Kaduna, and the Kaduna refinery has been moribund for more than 20 years. I know of people working there who have been idle all these years receiving salaries and promotions. This is inefficiency of a worrisome proportion. The company needs to seek creative ways to repurpose staff strength in such facilities to areas where they can remain productive even in the absence of crude oil at the refineries,” the speaker said.

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He said the 10th Assembly would support the company in its fight against oil theft, noting that the House has taken the lead in creating a Special Committee on Oil Theft and Pipeline Vandalism, which was inaugurated on Wednesday.

Earlier, the group chief executive officer (GCEO) of the NNPC Limited, Mele Kyari said with the enactment of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), the company has greatly improved in many areas.

Kyari said, NNPCL was hitherto operating at a loss, recording a negative of N803 billion in 2018 but through the implementation of the PIA it realised N674 billion profit after tax in 2021, and over N2 trillion income in 2022.

He added that the company had a projected revenue to the tune of N4.5 trillion as expected income in 2023, adding that having gone fully commercial, the company controls over 30% of the market share in the downstream sector.