The Federal Government has assured that the Port Harcourt refinery would be functional within 18 months.
Minister of State for Petroleum, Chief Timipre Sylva, who gave the assurance, also informed that the government planned to rehabilitate other refineries in the country, insisting that the move was not a waste of funds as believed in some quarters.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, the former governor said, “Port Harcourt Refinery will work and, certainly, within the next 18 months.
“There are plans to also fix the Warri Refinery and Kaduna Refinery and then, we would get all those staff to work.”
The government had, on March 17th approved $1.5 billion for the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refinery, an amount which many had described as too much for the project.
However, the minister debunked insinuations that the rehabilitation could have taken less than N500 million.
“You see; Nigerians like to bandy figures. I can tell you that that cannot be true. We are talking with the professionals,” he said.
While many, including members of the opposition, have raised eyebrows over the funding for the project, with fears that borrowing for the rehabilitation would future mortgage the country’s future, he said borrowing would only form a part of the project fund.
“Let me tell you how this rehabilitation is going to be funded; it is not going to be all debts. We are not going to borrow all the monies that are going into the rehabilitation (project).
“Some of the money will come from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) from NPDC. Some of it will come from the federal appropriation, and just a little fraction will come from the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank),” he explained
