Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The House of Representatives, yesterday, resolved to investigate alleged $396.33 million expenditure on the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries.
The House mandated its Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) to probe the processes of the TAM at the three refineries by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) from 2013 to date.
The Committee is ex- pected to report back to the House in eight weeks for fur- ther legislative actions,
This followed the adop- tion of a motion by Ifeanyi Momah, calling for a probe of the funds allegedly spent on the maintenance of the three refineries.
Momah, in his motion, noted that the Nigerian National Resource Centre (NNRC) in a recent report stated that the NNPC spent $396.33 million to under- take repairs at Port Har- court, Warri and Kaduna
refineries.
The lawmaker added that
that there were claims that the NNPC also allegedly spent N276.872 billion as operating expenses in the three refineries between 2013 and 2017, and another $36 billion on the importa- tion of petroleum between 2013 and 2017.
He argued that though the three refineries have installed capacity “to refine 445,000 barrels of oil, enough for domestic consumption and export… this objective has not been realized owing to a combination of factors, including corruption and in efficiency in the running of the refineries.”
Momah further stated that “the three refineries contribute less than ten per cent annually to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and they are also among the league of refineries with the highest operating cost worldwide , as their consolidated capacity utilization dropped to 6.1 per cent at the end of September 2017.”