The
Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan, has approved the commencement of
the privatization of the nation’s four refineries by the Bureau of
Public Enterprises.
According to the agency, the four
refineries are the Port Harcourt Refining Company Limited i and ii, the
Kaduna Refining & Petrochemical Company Limited, and the Warri
Refining & Petrochemical Company Limited.
To
oversee the process, the President has also approved the constitution
of a steering committee chaired by the minister of petroleum resources
and has 13 members including the coordinating minister of the economy,
minister of power, minister of labour and minister of national planning.
The committee will, among other things, advise the National
Council on Privatization on the best way to privatize the refineries and
carry out any other ancillary activities relevant to privatization of
the refineries.
This development is a direct opposite to the
demands of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association
(PENGASSAN) and the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers
(NUPENG) that staged a rally on Tuesday December 17 to protest the
planned privatization.
The association announced its resolve to
commence an indefinite strike in the first week of January 2014, if the
Federal Government fails to rescind its decision to privatise the
nation’s refineries.
The unions are protesting what they termed a
“hand over of the nation’s refineries to cronies of the Federal
Government.” They also alleged that the nature in which business was
done in the oil and gas industry was fraught with secrecy.
“You
cannot sell something without a model, without Nigerians knowing exactly
what you are doing” said the National President of the Petroleum and
Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN), Babatunde Oguns.
At this rate oga presido will soon privatise nigeria as a whole, first PHCN, now refineries. Hmnnnn
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