How more than $19 billion was wasted on non-functional refineries – Gov Sule
Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule, has decried the amount of money – more than $19 billion wasted in fixing on non-functional refineries by the immediate past administration of Muhammadu Buhari.
Governor Sule in an interview with Channels Television on Friday said the $19 billion used in fixing the Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna was the actual amount used in erecting Africa’s biggest petrol chemical refinery – Dangote Refinery.
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According to the governor, the capacity of the non-functional three refineries if combined with the total of N450,000 barrels per day cannot be compared with the Dangote Refinery which is estimated to produce 650,000pbd.
“Look at how much the President Buhari administration spent on fixing the refineries. In the eight years, he spent more money than the $19 billion that Dangote spent in building a refinery. That is one and half times the size of our three refineries combined,” he said.
“Our three refineries in Nigeria today have a total of 450,000 barrels per day, Dangote is 650,000. He spent $19 billion on building it. We spent, not building a new one, but in maintaining these refineries more than $19 billion in eight years, yet they have not been maintained.”
On removal of subsidy by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the governor commended the move by the president and blamed the rise in payment of subsidy on Nigeria’s non-functional refineries.
“From the government side, I think we didn’t do a good job. When the (former) President (Buhari) came in in 2015, prices of crude oil dropped by less than 30 dollars. At that time there was zero subsidy.”
Governor Sule also lamented the complexity of maintaining the refineries due to their diverse components.
“The refinery is actually a component for water, crude, and diesel, about five or six different components that constitute a refinery.
“The moment the government says we are going to spend $2 billion this year on the refinery. The $2 billion is spent and as far as the President is concerned, they have given $2 billion.
“Now when it goes to the three refineries that we have in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna. Then they say, you now take $700 million, you now take $800 million – by the time they take that, it goes to fix maybe only one component out of the four components that are all bad.”