The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abass Tajudeen, has urged the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, to sell off government-owned refineries.
The federal government has four refineries: two in Port Harcourt and one each in Kaduna and Warri which have not been functioning but said to be undergoing turn around.
On Thursday when the Group Chief Officer of the NNPCL, Mele Kyari led officials of the company to the Speaker, the latter urged that the organisation better give up its hold on the refineries.
Tajudeen urged a sale of it all to the private individuals and organisations saying government is incapable of running business successfully.
According to him, “There is a need to make these refineries have multi-dimensional uses. If there is no crude oil, are there other activities that can make the workers active so that what they earn is deserved? I need you and your management to look at how we can turn around these decades of losses.
“One way to do so is to find a way to privatise these refineries. We have spent so much money and time deceiving ourselves that some businesses can be run by the government.
“In the case of the refineries, we have now realised that some sectors of NNPCL business can only be handled by the private sector and our refineries are one of those.
“The inadequacies will become manifest as soon as the Dangote refinery comes on board because the competition will be there and inefficiencies of the refineries will become more naked.
“I want you to put it as part of your cardinal objectives ways to privatise our refineries so that they can be active. Shortly, they will be able to compete with new refineries that will come up.”
