•Vice-President inaugurates 300m-litre tank farm
Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has said private sector capital must lead the nation’s economic revolution.
He said the sector remained the nation’s major economic source, adding that the main job of government is to create the environment to enable commerce to thrive unhindered.
Osinbajo spoke yesterday when he inaugurated a 300-million litre tank farm at Ibefun in Ogun State.
The Vice-President said it would reduce the stress of petroleum product distribution and create 10,000 jobs.
Osinbajo, who arrived the site about 1.20 pm, inspected the phase one of the world-class tank and inaugurated it about two hours later.
The Vice-President said the Federal Government would provide incentives to enable petroleum and petro-chemical industries thrive and attract more genuine investors to the sector.
The tank farm has 30 loading facilities, 300-million litre capacity storage, 26 barges, vessel, residential quarters, an army barracks and automated 4,000-truck capacity trailer park, with accommodation for drivers.
Mr Segun Adebutu, chairman of Petrolex Mega Oil City and son of billionaire business mogul, Sir Kensington Adebutu, is arrowhead of the project.
The tank farm is expected to attract an extensive social investment that will impact positively on over two million lives.
Osinbajo said the government was also working out how to help investors and local industries access cheap credit facilities to grow their capacity.
He said: “From the point of view of government’s downstream objectives in the Petroleum sector, this investment is of special significance. It takes the burden of strengthening our distribution infrastructure for petroleum products and meeting the target at the end of 2018 and first quarter of 2019 for reducing importation of petroleum products and premium motor spirit (PMS or petrol) to less than 20 per cent.
“We expect that this pace will be filled by investments and facilities such as this. This is why we are delighted that this facility has the capacity to store 300 million litres of petroleum products, the largest of its kind in the country and, I am told, the largest in sub-Saharan Africa, and conveniently hold 4,000 trucks at a time and a gantry capable of having about 30 million metric tonnes of cargo.
“This will substantially improve retail distribution in Nigeria, increase domestic storage of petroleum products and the cargo coming in from larger vessels will be stored and loaded from the gantry right here. It will decongest Apapa and Ibafo tanker traffic, facilitate the distribution from here to anywhere in the country.
“But, perhaps for greater importance as future of our national economic objectives is that this facility again bears out a philosophical plan of our economic recovery and growth plan, which is that private capital must lead Nigeria’s economic revolution, and this is right.
“The private sector is the nation’s major economic source; the primary business of government is to create the environment that enables commerce to thrive unhindered.
“Important also is the fact that significance of local investments, such as this, send the strongest possible signal to foreign investors that not only is the government safe but Nigeria is indeed investment designation in Africa.
“May I also say that there is credible independent third party evidence that we are on the right path. A month and a half ago, the World Bank adjudged to be one of the tenth most improved economies in the world, this year, from the point of view of our business and investments plans.
“This facility also represents jobs, 10,000 direct and indirect jobs. Each of these jobs will support not just workers but their dependants. Apart from this, it has significant impact on the local economy here – by way of increased income for traders, farmers, artisans and land owners and economic activities, where there were no activities hitherto.
“The Federal Government believes that industrialisation is key to achieving economic development growth and creating jobs for millions of our people.”
Also, former President Olusegun Obasanjo urged the Federal Government to support such private initiative, which Petrolex represents.
He noted that without government encouragement, the efforts may come to naught.
Obasanjo urged the Federal Government and Nigerians to leverage on the tank farm to tackle supply and distribution of petroleum products, saying non-utilisation of it could result in colossal waste.
He said: “We should make use of these facilities. If not utilised, it will be a waste to the nation and a waste of investment put into it. Government should support private sector initiative.
“The private sector initiative without government support will amount to nothing. I will urge Segun Adebutu to hold the government to its promise to help the private sector initiative.”
Adebutu said no nation or society can develop without the private investor.
The businessman said the government and lawmakers should not be left with the task of building the nation.
He urged other private investors and entrepreneurs to join him at Ibefun in Ogun State to invest their capital.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu and the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Maikanti Baru, assured Adebutu that the government will work for its success.
Dignitaries at the event include the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi; the Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo and the Oba of Lagos, Oba Rilwan Akiolu.
