Foreigners have taken over Nigeria’s oil industry – Lasun
By Joshua Egbodo
Abuja
The House of Representatives, yesterday ordered the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation to halt the ongoing process for the privatisation of the nation’s refineries, for lack of due process.
It also invited the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, to answer questions on the said privatisation of the refineries.
The House Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation, gave the directive during an interaction with the NNPC’s Group Executive Director, Refineries, Mr. Anibor Kragha.
Although Kragha said the corporation was only seeking a joint venture in the management of the refineries, but the lawmakers insisted the process be halted for now for non-compliance with due process.
While denying being aware of letters reportedly written to NNPC by the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) on the said privatisation of the refineries, he said, NNPC does not have the mandate to privatise, describing the claim as “a misrepresentation.”
Acting Director-General of BPE, Mr. Vincent Akpotabie, however, explained that the Bureau was not aware that NNPC was making any move to privatise the nation’s refineries, adding however that the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, was only putting in place a framework for the exercise.
The committee later said the NNPC violated section 11 of the BPE Act, adding that the joint venture agreement the NNPC was claiming to seek, had overtime, failed the country.
“You have not given us clear cut answers and you are saying you are recently appointed. In fact, you don’t have a presentation which is against the rule. I suggest we call off the meeting and you stop all procedures of privatisation and we are going to report this to the House. It is a total violation of the BPE Act,” Chairman of the Committee, Ahmed Yerima stated this as resolution of the panel.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Speaker of the House, Yusuf Lasun, has lamented the loss of the nation’s oil industry to foreigners, in spite of being adjudged the second best crude oil (bonny lite) quality, globally.
Lasun stated this while receiving the management team of the Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI), when the body came to submit its 2013 audit report on the oil and gas sector, to the House yesterday.
He said: “We have lost the oil industry. Nigeria as a nation has lost the industry. We don’t have the technology, we don’t have the knowledge. We only get the crude and get income. We don’t know anything about the industry.
“Nigeria has been short changed in multiple folds because we’re losing by-products since 1956, all the oil wells still belong to the multinationals. But in some countries, after about 25 to 30 years, the oil wells will go back to the country. That is not the case in our country.
“You’re in the best position to know the challenges in the extractive industry. I am only challenging you that this report has been submitted and we’re going to deal with it the way we used to. But because you’re in charge of collecting data in this sector, I want you to dig deeper and don’t remain at the current level.”
Earlier, Executive Secretary of NEITI, Waziri Adio, said, though the agency has been transmitting its audit reports to the parliament since 2007, his team decided to come as a management because of their commitment to changing the way their operations were carried out.
