From Ahmed Idris, Birnin Kebbi
The Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr Benjamin E.Dikki has said that despite the criticism by some extremist, Federal Government has committed to privatize the nations refineries in order to curb the suffering of people most especially the motorist and the country economics.
Confirmed it to newsmen while feeding questions from journalists shortly after the closing remarks of 2014 Zuru Emirat Uhola Annual Cultural Festival adding that What they are doing now is that we are engaging ourselves to see whether we can reach an understanding for the privatization of the refinerie.
“What I can assure you is that it is a question of time, the refineries will be privatized at one stage. The nature and structuring of the privatization is what we be determine” he added.
He said everybody agrees that it is desirable to privatize the refineries adding that, because of the agitation of NUPENG and PENGASSAN,the matter was kept on hold and the labour unions, the Minister of Labour ,Minister of Petroleum, DG BPE and other top government functioneries engaged in a dialogue.
“There have been threats of shot down by NUPENG and PENGASSAN in December 2013.They threatened to shut down the nation. As patriotic Nigerian, the Federal Government will not do anything that will bring hardship to its people.
“We came out with a Memorandum of Understanding where NUPENG said they are not averse to looking at businesses options of dealing with the refineries. The Unions have also come to the conclusion that government, giving its vast demand on its resources,it is not in the position to make the necessary investment to actually activate and make this refineries functional.
“Turn Around Maintainance is not enough, there are other investments that needs to be made and the unions are saying that they want a scenario where the refineries are not sold 100 percent like in the case of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) model where there is a private sector who is holding the controlling interest but government still has some significant position and government is not averse to it,” he added.
While commending the Emir of Zuru,Retired Maj.Gen.Sani Sami, Dikki, who is also the chairman of the Uhola agric festival, called on the Emirate to invite agric experts to introduce a workshop to train farmers on different innovation on improved yield. “This will assit farmers to understand the innovation in modern farming in Nigeria and encourage youths to embrace farming,”He said.
