A non-governmental organization, Publish What You Pay (PWYP) has asked President Muhammadu Buhari’s government to reveal details about the Dangote Refinery contract.
The Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari had announced that Nigeria’s national oil company would supply the refinery with three hundred thousand barrels of crude oil daily, accounting for 46.2 percent of the refinery’s daily crude oil needs.
However, Comrade Taiwo Otitolaye, the National Coordinator of PWYP described the refinery’s inauguration as “another phase and the beginning of the corporate capture of our Commonwealth by frontiers of the ruling class.”
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The group urged the Buhari government to clarify the fate of Nigeria’s four refineries.
Otitolaye insisted that the Nigerian government lacked transparency regarding the Dangote Refinery.
He said:
“Mr Kyari was quoted to have said that ‘we want to address the energy challenges so that industrialization can come to the country.’
“Has any monopoly arrangements ever enthroned industrialization in any climes?
“The Publish What You Pay (PWYP), Nigeria wonders why the nation’s four (4) refineries that several billions of dollars have been wasted on cannot work while the managers of our economy are happy to cheaply give away the people’s natural resources while host communities live in degraded, environmentally polluted and disease invested underserved communities: and the citizenry lives in abject poverty.
“Industrialization, growth and development can only come when we deploy our resources for a productive economy away from casino economy.
“When our refineries are functional, we derive several dozens of petroleum by-products like petrol, diesel, jet fuel, kerosene, paraffin, heavy fuel oil, liquefied petroleum gases (LPG), petrochemical, feedstock and bitumen including fertilizer, flooring (floor covering), perfume, insecticide, petroleum jelly, soap, vitamins and some essential amino acids, etc.
“All these petroleum wastes will reposition thousands of our ailing and collapsed industries for value chain activities, employment and revenue generation; for the government, the informal economy and the mass of our people.
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“To us, productivity is the road to industrialization and national development.
“We have said it for the umpteenth time that oil swaps will continue in a weak, leaking, corrupt, and compromised system like we have suffered and continue to suffer in Nigeria.”
The PWYP Coordinator went on and listed some of the unanswered questions about the contract.
He said:
“What are the contents of the contract agreement with the Dangote refinery? For how long are we going to continue? Oil swaps that are wastages compared to self-oil refining?
“How would it address industrialization of the country? What happens to the nation’s four (4) refineries that we have wasted several billions of dollars in TAM, staff remunerations and other expenses?
“Would our refineries go the way of the Discos, Gencos and other government enterprises that were grossly undervalued and sold under the guise of privatization?
“For how long would this path of economic sabotage and looting of commonwealth last?”
The Dangote Refinery is owned by Nigerian billionaire businessman, Aliko Dangote.