Group Wants Local Refineries Recognised

A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Intelligentsia Focus Group, has called on the Federal Government to design possible ways of standardising the operations of local refineries in the country and accord them full recognition, in the face of president challenges confronting the oil sector.

Making the call in Port Harcourt over the weekend, the group said while the four major refineries in the country remained prostrate for decades, forcing the government to import finished petroleum products at highly subsidised rate, it makes more economic sense to legalise local refineries and also assist the operators to upgrade their operations as a bail out strategy.

Chairman of the group, Comrade Mbrelolomari Onengia who spoke in an interview with The Tide said, “it is not enough to tag the local refineries illegal, economic saboteurs and all sorts of derogatory remarks.

The issue is that they have demonstrated that what our four refineries that gulp billions of Naira have failed to do for decades are being done by these local refineries that operate with crude materials, they should be encouraged.”

Instead of chasing operators of these refineries about, the group suggested they should be allowed to register under NGOs while experts from the appropriate agencies of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) be allowed to organise and train them to upgrade their operations to acceptable standard while crude allocations should be given them to help in refining crude to finished products for the country.

The chairman explained that standardising the operations of the local refineries would generate income for the government and operators of the refineries as well as employ more Nigerians such as artisans and other unemployed Nigerian graduates who are in the business.

He pointed out that when the refineries are recognised and upgraded, the environmental hazards caused by them would be drastically reduced while theft of crude and pipelines vandalism would be checked.

Intelligentsia Focus Group, which accused the federal government of the telling Nigerians the whole truth about the state of affairs of the nation’s four major refineries wondered why thousands of workers whose salaries weigh down the nation’s economy continue to be paid monthly for the past two decades.

His words: “These workers are doing nothing and refineries which operate successfully in other nations of the world continue to fail abysmally in Nigeria which is regarded as one of the major countries with crude deposit.

Reacting to the removal of fuel subsidy currently generating controversy in the country, Comrade Mbrelolonari noted that the federal government spends billions of naira to subsidise the imported finished products, stressing that oil marketers were the main beneficiaries of the strategy instead of the government and common Nigerians.

Chris Oluoh