The Trade Union Congress (TUC) and PENGASSAN President, Festus Osifo, on Wednesday said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has assured the union that the Port Harcourt refinery will become operational at the end of this year 2023.
Osifo made this known in his appearance on Channels Television programme, PoliticsToday, on Wednesday night after the union meeting with President Tinubu at the presidential villa, Abuja.
Osifo and his Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) counterpart, Joe Ajaero, met with Tinubu amid nationwide protests after consecutive fuel price hikes arising as a result of President Bola Tinubu’s subsidy removal which gave room for market forces to determine the price.
The TUC President held that the nationwide protest was “largely successful “and had the impact to spur the President to fix the major refineries across the nation.
The President will be held accountable
Osifo said, “When we asked him, even before now, part of the things they have also said was issued around the supply chain.
“We told him categorically, ‘Tell us when would the refinery start functioning? What we had from them was that by the end of this year, the refinery – the whole Port Harcourt refinery would come on stream most definitely by the end of the year.’’
Recall that The Federal Government had on March 17, 2021, approved $1.5 billion for the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refinery, an amount which many had described as too much for the project.
The NNPC while giving the reason the Federal Government is spending the huge sum of $1.5 billion on the 2 refineries in Port Harcourt, said that the funds were approved for the complete rehabilitation and not turnaround maintenance.
IdanNews also gathered that the then Minister of State for Petrol, Timipre Sylva, had said that the Port Harcourt Refinery will commence operations within the next 18 months. Also, Sylva had in January 2023, announced that the commencement of operations at the 60,000 barrels per day Port Harcourt refinery has been shifted from December 2022 to the first quarter of this year, stressing that the facility had been completed.
However, the facility he said had been completed is yet to commence operation
Meanwhile, Osifo asure that organised labour would make sure President Tinubu’s assurances would not just be empty talk but that a structure would be put in place to hold the number one citizen accountable.
In his words, “Today, they told us that by the end of this year, the whole Port Harcourt refinery will come on stream. With the extra information that we have, we believe it is possible, but we need to keep checking on them to ensure that we actually achieve that feat.”
On the state of other refineries, Osifo believes the duo of Warri and Kaduna are an easy fix but that of the latter is hampered by the security situation in the country
He said, “The Port Harcourt refinery is a total rehabilitation but the Kaduna and the Warri refinery is a quick fix.
“Both refineries, they awarded to do, but at a particular point, they will mobilise to Warri, but Kaduna they refuse to mobilise because of security issues. So, Warri is actually ahead of Kaduna, but as of today, they have not given us a clear timeline on that.’’
