The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission, ICRC, has asked the Federal Government and the NNPC to concession the refineries in the country in order to make them functional and profitable.
The Director-General, ICRC, Chidi Izuwah, made the call at the Nigeria International Oil and Gas Summit in Abuja on Wednesday, urging NNPC and the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources to appreciate the gains derivable from such concession.
Izuwah said: “For me, I’m looking into the future. Let’s look at our telecoms sector 16 years ago, imagine that we had Nitel up until now, what would it be like? Our lines will still be tossed, the incentives structure will promote corruption. The government must play a role to break the back of government dominance in the downstream sector and bring in the private sector. That’s the only way to go.
“When you bring in the private sector, you will change the incentive structure. People will be incentivised and make the right level of investments. And what do I mean? Very simple; we should concession the NNPC refineries to the private sector.
“The investments will come and, on a BOT (Build, Operate and Transfer) basis you concession them, they (investors) rehabilitate and upgrade them and recoup their money. There’s a huge opportunity in refining. It’s a profitable business. So, the role of government is to attract investments to change that sector.”
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