Chairman of the House of Representatives Adhoc Committee on the state of the country’s refineries, Hon Ganiyu Abiodun Johnson, has expressed commitment to ensure the refineries get working.
Speaking on Thursday after their inaugural meeting, Johnson said the Speaker, Rep Femi Gbajabiamila, constituted the Committee to determine the state of refineries in the country and what is needed to bring them back to maximum refining capacity.
He said the Committee is to carry out a thorough investigation requesting for information and data from the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and other relevant stakeholders.
Hon Johnson said, “What we told our members is that by next week, we would come up with the work plan. How we are going to go about addressing the various issues. The major challenge facing our people is that this subsidy is going round and round. And our refineries play a key role in helping to curb subsidy.
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“If the refineries are working – not necessarily at their optimal capacity, it means that we don’t need to import our Premium Motor Spirit, also known as petrol anymore. So, the challenge we have is to make sure that our refineries are working.
“How to go about it, is the challenge that we have. How much have they expended on the various refineries and how much is it going to cost us to complete (the rehabilitation of) the refineries, so that we would be able to use them?
“The stakeholders that we will invite include NNPC, PENGASSAN, the marketers and others. They will be able to contribute into our work plan.”
Johnson expressed hope that with the assignment given to the committee, “we will be able to get it done once and for all.”
The lawmaker said, “For example, the Port Harcourt refineries is undergoing rehabilitation and we intend to visit there. Not only the two in Port Harcourt but also the ones in Warri and Kaduna.
“By the time we complete our inspection visitations, we would be able to tell Nigerians that they should rest assured that the issue of subsidy is a thing of the past. We are representing the people and we must make sure that we also do justice to whatever we are doing.”