Reps Kick Against Planned Sale Of Refineries

The House of Representatives Committee on Privatisation, yesterday, stopped the proposed sale of Nigeria’s three refineries by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.

The committee, after engaging officials of the NNPC and the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) on the exercise declared that NNPC violated the provisions of the BPE Act Section 11 of 2009 by going ahead with the exercise without involving other stakeholders as contained in the Act.

Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, who is also Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, was represented by the Group Executive Director, Anibor Kragba at the sitting, to the chagrin of the lawmakers who expected him to have appeared himself for such an important sitting.

Speaking before the committee, Kragba denied plans to privatise the refineries. According to him, the NNPC is only sourcing for core investors to invest in the refineries, since their rehabilitation was capital intensive.