The Federal Government has been urged to stop committing more public funds to the rehabilitation of idle refineries, warning that continued spending without a clear commercial case could deepen the country’s financial losses.
An energy expert, Dan Kunle, made the call in an open letter to President Bola Tinubu, days after the president assured that the government-owned refineries would return to operation.
Tinubu had recently assured the leadership of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, that the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries would “come back to work”.
The President said his administration was undertaking a “firm reset and structural reworking” of the facilities to make them profitable and capable of delivering value to Nigerians.
However, Kunle in his letter questioned the rationale behind further investment in the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries, arguing that the government should first establish what had gone wrong with previous rehabilitation programmes and how much had already been spent.
