Obele Wants Foreign Investors For PH Refinery Privatisation

As the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited prepares to privatise the Port Harcourt Refinery at Alesa, Eleme Rivers State, a frontline indigenous petroleum products marketer and university don, Dr. Joseph Obele, has appealed to the NNPC Ltd to give consideration to only foreign investors.
Obele, who was responding to the public announcement calling for interested companies to bid for the privatisation of the refinery, said indigenous bidders might be less transparent and open in their bids.
He said the news of the proposed privatisation of the refinery has been received with excitement by the host communities of the refinery, who see it as an opportunity to engage positively with the management of the refinery.
He said, “The 60 years operation of the facility under the management of NNPC cannot be described as beneficial to the host communities. There is no framework of MOU signed by NNPC and host communities from inception till date. There is no consideration of jobs opportunities for members of the host communities as conception because NNPC recruitment are usually done at Abuja on the ground of National character.
“Basically, awards of contracts by NNPC are done on favouritism, nepotism, ethnicity, political and religious grounds.
“Privatisation of the facility will create opportunity for MOU establishment between the host communities and the firm.”
Dr Obele further argued that the privatisation will also usher in a template for equity engagement in line with the Local Content Act.
“The benefits for the host communities, federal government and state government is enormous and encouraging as against the zero benefit status with NNPC at the moment.
“Privatisation will pave way for effective competition with the Africa giant private refinery owned by Dangote PLC. By that the price of petroleum products will reduce arising from market forces occasioned by intense competition.
“Privatisation will create more job opportunities to the youths arising from effective managerial skills and competence of the private firm,” he said.
Obele said government and political control of the refinery had orchestrated negative engagement of incompetent personnel in NNPC, which was the bane of the company over the years.
He said, “The proposed privatisation of Port Harcourt refinery is commendable and Mr. President should be supported to complete the process in a transparent manner.
“It will be more beneficial if the plant is privatised to a foreign firm, particularly American or British firm. Privatising it to a Nigerian firm or Asian firm might involve some unseen fingers with negative tendencies.”