The recent announcement of the shutdown of the Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC) otherwise known as Port Harcourt Refinery by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has continued to generate angry reactions from industry stakeholders and analysts who reiterated calls for a full privatisation of the government-owned refineries to achieve efficiency and optimisation in the operation of the refineries.
The refinery was shut down in March 2019 for the first phase of repair works after the government secured the services of Italy’s Maire Tecnimont to handle the review of the refinery complex.
The Port Harcourt refineries are among the four refineries operated by the national oil company, which has gulped billions of dollars in turnaround maintenance (TAM). The other refineries are the Warri and Kaduna refineries.
The Port Harcourt refinery, which was shut down for maintenance, had gulped over $1.5bn for rehabilitation.
In fact, the federal government had spent billions of dollars on the refineries amidst calls for privatisation to reduce the amount of public spending on the refineries.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo had sold the refineries to a group of private investors led by the President of Dangote Industries Limited, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, at $750m, but the money was refunded to them by his successor, late Alhaji Umar Musa Yar’Adua.
The federal government should stop wasting money on the refineries, saying billions of naira had been sunk into the four state-owned refineries without results.
The decision by former President Obasanjo to sell off the refineries was the best and shouldn’t have been reversed.
The truth is that those refineries will never work under the public sector control of the NNPC. For those refineries to work, we must do what we did at the Eleme Petrochemical Plant. The federal government must sell 80 per cent of the NNPC shareholding in those refineries to deep-pocketed private sector investors who would take 30% then the rest to Nigerians.
It is an embarrassment to the government and Nigeria. We felt it was brand new. We didn’t expect it to be shut down like that. What is worth doing at all is worth doing well. After postponing the opening more than six times, they need to come and explain to Nigerians what the problem is.
The amount spent on turnaround maintenance is enough to build two brand new refineries at a time naira still had value. This amount is more than what we can use to build two refineries when the naira still had value. This is where we are. Because it is government property and government business, people do what they like. If it were a private business, it would not be like this. Only God knows how much they would come up with to bring it back again.
We don’t have a conscience. If we have conscience, we cannot spend $1.5bn and then, you come back to complain. This wasn’t how it was in the 70s.
Unending turn around maintenance that only ends up turning around the bank accounts of a few cronies, what a shame!
Every administration keeps spending huge amounts of money on outdated moribund white elephants that keep their pockets greased and Nigerians poorer.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo said the truth, privatize those refineries and if no one is interested in buying them sell them off as scraps.
Invest those monies in education, turn it around and watch Nigerians prosper.
By
Osaretin Obasuyi
Head, Marketing,
Success 105.3 FM,
Ibadan.
