Senate To Probe Money Spent On Refineries’ Maintenance Since 2010

By Sola Omoniyi, Lagos

The Senate on Tuesday resolved to mandate its Committee on Downstream Petroleum to investigate all contracts awarded for the rehabilitation of all the state-owned refineries between 2010 and 2023.

The lawmakers also plan to ascertain progress on the ongoing works in all refineries to forestall waste and corruption and interrogate the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) on the best approach to commercializing and/or ensuring profitability of the state-owned Refineries; and Invite the NNPCL, NUPRC and LNG to explain the nation’s preparation for Green Energy Sources in line with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

It was gathered that the Senate frowned at what they perceived to be sabotage of the Federal Government’s effort to resuscitate the nation’s refineries, despite N11.35 trillion spent on maintenance of the moribund refineries.

The Senate has also raised the urgent need for security agencies to probe the circumstances leading to the Otukpo bank robbery attack on Friday, October 20 which claimed the lives of nearly 8 persons including 4 police personnel.

It also called for an unravelling of reasons behind the lack of intelligence and alertness on the part of the police on the day of the attack.

For the motion moved by Senator Abba Moro (PDP, Benue South) the Senate also observed a minute silence in honour of the dead victims of the Otukpo bank robbery.