Pray that the refineries do not work - Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Taiwo Oyedele, tells Nigerians

The Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Taiwo Oyedele, has said Nigerians should pray that the country’s refineries do not work.

Oyedele said this when he spoke at The Platform’s Independence Anniversary event, held in Lagos on Monday, October 2.

Oyedele said should Nigerian refineries produce petroleum, inefficiencies in the management might make a litre of petrol the most expensive in the world.

“Nigerians would say if only our refineries were working, then we’ll 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 don’t work. We should sell them.

The National Assembly said we have spent over N10tn maintaining our refineries even when they have not produced anything. The time that they were producing, the GMD of NNPC at the time who is now the CEO of NNPC limited, said We had to shut down the one that we were producing because they took crude of $100 and produced refined products of $97. They have not added overhead. 

If Nigerian refineries produce 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 subsidy of the refineries.'' Oyedele said