By Ken Afor
Nigeria’s former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has faulted the proposed plans by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to hand over the rehabilitated government-owned Port Harcourt Refinery to private operators.
Atiku made this known following the announcement by the NNPCL that it is in search of a reliable and trustworthy operations and maintenance companies to effectively manage and maintain the Port Harcourt Refining Company.
It would be recalled that in March 2021, the Nigerian government approved a budget of £1.08 billion ($1.5 billion) for the rehabilitation of the refinery complex.
The financing for the refinery upgrade was sourced from the internally generated revenue (IGR) of NNPC, the budgetary provisions of the Nigerian Federal Government, and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank).
But, Atiku, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said that the NNPC shouldn’t have rehabilitated the refinery before planning to privatise it to avoid debt.
While condemning the move, Atiku on his X handle on Tuesday called on the NNPCL to justify its actions and explain to Nigerians the advantages of its recently introduced privatization strategy.
Atiku stated, “I have always advocated for far-reaching reforms to reposition Nigeria’s oil sector and, indeed, other sectors of our economy.
“In particular, I had consistently called on the Buhari administration to break its monopoly in all infrastructure sectors, including the refineries, and give investors, both foreign and domestic, a larger role in funding and management.
“My position has been well laid out in The Atiku Plan (2018) and My Covenant With Nigerians (2022). But our suggestions fell on deaf ears. First, they refused to privatise the refineries. They left them idle for years while paying humongous staff salaries.
“Then, they contracted a loan of US$1.5 billion for rehabilitation. Now, the current administration wants to turn the rehabilitated refinery to private concerns for operation and maintenance!
“Without prejudice to the terms of the agreement between the NNPC and the private operators, it would undoubtedly have been better if the NNPC had sold the refinery, pre-rehabilitation, to avoid the burden of debt.
“The NNPC must explain to the satisfaction of Nigerians what benefits its newly discovered approach to privatisation will confer on Nigeria and Nigerians.”
TheNewDiplomat recalls that the NNPCL’s aim to privatise the refinery is “to ensure reliability and sustainability towards meeting the nation’s fuel supply and energy security obligations.”
The NNPCL further explained that the contract will encompass various aspects of refinery business processes. These include long-term and short-term production/operations planning, production and operations execution, monitoring, reporting, and optimization of operations, maintenance execution, health and safety, environmental management, minor projects, and more.
When fully operational, the refinery is expected to process 60,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
