ADC A FG: There must be audit complete with refineries before the sale

● Planned faults after spent billions of dollars in repairs

The African Democratic Congress (ADC) requested a complete audit of the Nigeria refineries, citing recent relationships according to which he said that subsequent governments had spent almost $ 18 billion for the rehabilitation of the three main refineries in the country.

In a declaration by the National Secretary of the ADC and the spokesman for the coalition, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the party asked if the Tinubu administration has deceived the Nigerians, having recently spent over $ 2.8 billion on the refineries, before declaring that they were dying.

The declaration read in Estenso:

The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has noticed with deep concern about the recent confirmation of the Tinubu administration and the leadership of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) that the Federal Government is proceeding with the full privatization of the state -owned refineries of Nigeria. This development, coming a few months after the government officials said that the refineries of Port Harcourt and Warri had resumed partial operations, raises fundamental issues on the transparency and coherence of policies.

It will be remembered that the APC government has recently announced that the refineries were already working. It is therefore curious that the government itself, having spent such enormous quantities on refineries, is now planning to sell them.

The ADC is worried about perennial waste and subtle relationships in the name of the trend reversal maintenance that has never changed anything but the personal fortunes of the people involved. We believe that this should not continue. However, we are suspicious of the current moves that are made by the government to openly sell the refineries without giving full considerations to alternative options and without consultations with the critical interested parties. Selling refineries in the prevailing circumstances is actually favorable to all types of criminal relationships, so national activities could be deliberately devalued and sold to the chronies.

The ADC therefore requires a complete and independent – financial, technical and structural audit – before any sale is contemplated or privatization is considered.

The subsequent APC administrations have paid over $ 18 billion in the so -called rehabilitation of the Nigeria refineries. It is said that the current administration has spent other $ 2.8 billion with the same pretext. However, there is no verifiable increase in the refining capacity, no efficiency of the observable costs and no benefit for the safety of fuel that accumulates to the Nigerian people. Instead, the same refineries remained inactive or dysfunctional, while the government continues to finance the import of refined oil products.

Even the main industrialist of Africa, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, whose private refinery is now the only refining activity practicable in the country, publicly declared his doubts about the fact that these refineries owned by the government can never work again. And he is right to doubt. The infrastructure is obsolete, the operations are dug and the entire value chain has become a black hole for public funds. So again, we have to ask: what is sold exactly and why now?

The truth is that if the intention has always been to privatize the refineries, the years of enormous public expenses are at best a waste and in the worst hypothesis a scam.

The government cannot, in good awareness, spend public funds on activities under the rehabilitation remains, just to turn and offer them for sale, without responsibility for the investments already made and without any public surrender. In other climates, those responsible for these transactions should have faced judgments.

The ADC believes that before any conversation on privatization can proceed, there must be a forensic audit complete with all the funds assigned to the rehabilitation of the refinery from 2010 to today. There must also be a technical evaluation of third parties to determine the true state and potential of the activities in question.

The results of the Audit must be presented in full to the public through a legislative auditor, with civil society, energy economists and anti -corruption agencies present. Until then, any attempt to sell these refineries must be considered not only illegitimate, but criminal.

It is not simply public finance. It is about public trust. If this government truly believes in the reform, then she has to start with the truth. And if he claims to be responsible, then he must submit to the control. What we are witnessing is not a political decision. It is a cover -up. And the ADC will not stand by while national activities are quietly auctioned to the cronies and to mask years of systemic insufficiency.

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