The Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Taiwo Oyedele, has said the country will be better off if it sold off state-owned refineries which have gulped over N10 trillion in repairs over the years.
He lamented that despite the huge money spent on the refineries, they were not functional.
Oyedele stated this during the Platform Nigeria symposium held in Lagos.
“Nigerians would say if only our refineries were working, then we will be fine. Nothing can be farther from the truth than that. In fact, Nigerians should come together and say please make sure that our refineries do not work. We should sell them.
“The National Assembly said we have spent over N10 trillion maintaining our refineries even when they have not produced anything
“If Nigerian refineries process crude oil unless we deal with our inefficiency, one litre of petrol will be the most expensive in the world. You would have succeeded in replacing the subsidy at the pump with the subsidy for the refineries,” he stated.
In August 2023, the National Assembly announced that it would probe the alleged N11.3 trillion expenditure by the Federal Government on Nigeria’s refineries’ turn-around maintenance between 2010 and 2020.
The House of Representatives Committee Chairman on Public Accounts, had expressed concern over the deplorable state of Nigeria’s refineries despite the significant amount of money spent on their maintenance over the past decade and said there should be consequences for wasteful spending.
