The House of Representatives, yesterday, demanded forensic audit of all rehabilitation projects at Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries on which N13 trillion had been spent in 13 years.
The demand followed the consideration of the recommendations of a report by its ad-hoc committee on the state of refineries and the need to ascertain the actual daily consumption of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, otherwise known as petrol, in Nigeria.
Recalled that the consideration of the report was deferred when presented last week because the chairman of the committee of the whole and deputy speaker, Ahmed Idris-Wase, last week told the committee chaired by Ganiyu Johnson to give clear cut recommendations based on its specific mandate.
Re-presenting the report at plenary, yesterday, Johnson said the findings of the committee revealed that the rehabilitation of the three refineries had cost the nation N11.35 trillion in 13 years, beginning from 2010.
He said the refineries became unproductive from 2010, making a range of losses, with Port Harcourt put at 7.6 per cent losses to the tune of N132.52 billion from 2012; Warri at 6 per cent losses amounting to N111.37 billion from 2014 and Kaduna at 10 per cent losses to the tune of N122.62 billion from 2014.
The report stated that from 2010 to 2019, the refineries performed sub-optimally, with an annual combined capacity of less than 30 per cent.
According to the report, the NNPC obtained an executive approval and shutdown the refineries for comprehensive rehabilitation to restore the plants to a maximum of 90 per cent utilisation.
The report said total losses from the non-functional refineries since 2010 were placed at N366.52 billion, while the total cost of operations and running them from 2010–2020 stood at N4.80 trillion.
It further indicated that subsidy payments totalling N5.9 trillion was made from 2010 to 2020.
The committee, however, recommended that the NNPCL fast tracked the rehabilitation programme of the refineries empowered by the legislative intent for a deregulated business environment and restore the refineries to a minimum 90 per cent nameplate capacity utilisation.
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