Bayelsa TUC Chairman Advocates Privatisation of FG Owned Refineries * Wants President Tinubu to hasten issuance of modular refinery licenses

By Majesty Inegbagha

 The Bayelsa state Chairman of Trade Union Congress (TUC), Comrade Julius Laye has advocated for the Privatisation of the federal government owned four Refineries of the country.

President Bola Tinubu

He also called on President Bola Tinubu led federal government to fast track the issuance of modular refinery licenses to capable investors interested in the business.

Comrade Laye who  made the assertion in Yenagoa, while exchanging views with journalists on contemporary issues about the state and the nation, said, the move apart from mitigating the effects of fuel subsidy's removal; would also impact positively  on the GDP growth, boost  employment, taxes, and exports.

He said emphatically that management of refineries under NNPC Limited have not been effective.

Laye recalled that between 2015 to 2022, Nigeria's government spent billions of Naira to resuscitate the nation's refineries in order to make the petroleum product available at affordable pump price; but nothing good came out of it.

He decried the scenario where Nigeria, a leading crude oil producer; is now a notoriously importer of petroleum products with devastating effect.

"It is amazing and uncalled for, for us to have crude oil in this country ; for us to have refineries in this country, and to take our product out; and then buy it, create scarcity and make us disadvantage in terms of foreign exchange.

And that is why the US Dollar, the money used in the international market; exchange rate is high in Nigeria," he asserted.

He lamented that since the federal government promised to establish Modular refineries in all oil producing communities during Vice President Yemi Osinbajo visit to the Niger Delta region to make the petroleum product available at affordable pump price, nothing has been done till now.

Laye stated that the emergence of functional modular refineries in their numbers in Nigeria is long overdue.

He said, the nation cannot continue to import products that we can refine with less cost.