Yemisi Izuora
Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum and Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi, has questioned the rationale of deploying scarce resources for the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt refinery when bigger projects like Dangote refinery is on the way.
Fayemi, therefore said that more information is needed to justify the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt refinery.
During an interview on Channels Television’s Hard Copy on Friday, March 19, Fayemi faulted the planned project noting that a private refinery built by Africa’s richest man, is about being commissioning.
“I wouldn’t have taken that decision given the fact that we know that a big refinery, private-sector driven is coming on stream; but I don’t have the information that led to that decision at first,” Fayemi stated.
“When you are outside a decision-making frame, there is some information that may not be available to you if you look at it at the pure face value. It may not be justifiable but we don’t have all the information responsible for that decision.”
The contractor approved by the Federal Government to repair the ailing refinery is an Italian E and EPC company that won the bid to handle the rehabilitation project.
Oriental News Nigeria, reports that the Federal Executive Council on March 17 approved $1.5 billion for the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt refinery which is said to commence immediately.
Timipre Sylva, the Minister of State for Petroleum told the media in Abuja; that the first phase will be completed in 18 months which takes the refinery to a production of 90 per cent of its capacity; the second phase will be completed in 24months; while the final phase will be completed in 44months.