Tinubu jumped the gun on P/Harcourt refinery – Kachikwu

Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, yesterday said the Group Chief Executive of Oando Plc, Mr. Jibril Adewale Tinubu, jumped the gun when he said his company has taken over the Port Harcourt Refinery. 

Kachikwu was reacting to Tinubu’s statement during a public hearing on the planned concession of the Port Harcourt Refinery at the Senate yesterday. 

Tinubu in a story headlined, ‘Oando takes over Port Harcourt Refinery’ published in a national Daily (Not Daily Trust) said his company has secured approval to take over the refinery. 

At the public hearing, chairman of the ad hoc committee, Senator Abubakar Kyari, drew Kachikwu’s attention to it, saying that the arrangement was expected to be completed July ending. 

Kachikwu said:  “Oando seems to have jumped the gun to say something was happening when there was nothing happening. My position is that we are not concessioning the refinery.” 

He added that there was no plan to concession any of the country’s four refineries, explaining that the Federal Government was only sourcing for private finance to repair them. 

“There has never been approval from anybody, including from the President, to concession the refineries. Since Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) has not yielded result, we decided that government would no longer invest in TAM. 

“We invited private organisations who have the potential to give us money to repair the refineries and pay them from the incremental volume of production that would arise from the repair. Oando/Agip happens to be among the organisations that have indicated interest to finance the repairs, “he stated. 

Kachikwu, who denied saying there won’t be open bidding on the refineries, insisted that the Federal Government was not concessioning them.  

Responding, however, Tinubu corroborated Kachikwu’s statement on concession but denied saying that his company had taken over Port Harcourt Refinery.  

“No concession or privatisation. We are only trying to find solutions to the perennial disgrace. It’s a national disgrace that we export crude and import petrol. We need to fix our refineries,” he said.  

The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Dr. Maikanti Baru, represented by the Chief Operating Officer of Refineries, Mr. Anibo Kragha, said there was no plan to concession the refineries. 

A representative of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr. Bamgbose Olukunle, said the office of the SGF has no hands in the concession. 

The Director-General of the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE), Alex Okoh and the Executive Director of Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission, Engineer Chidi Izuwah, also said they were not aware of the planned concession of the refinery.

At the end of the public hearing, Kyari told newsmen that since Kachikwu and head of agencies have claimed that it was repair and not concession that was being planned for the refineries, it should be transparent and all relevant stakeholders should be carried along.