The senator representing the Ondo North Senatorial District of Ondo State, Jide Ipinsagba has expressed assurance that all the refineries in the country would begin to work before the end of the year.
The senator, who is the Senate Chairman on Niger Delta Affairs, said the ongoing work would have been completed on the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries, adding that operation of the refineries would begin before December this year.
He gave this assurance while speaking in Akure, the Ondo State capital on Saturday.
Ipinsagba, who is also the Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum Downstream, stated that by the time all the refineries were put in proper shape, the problem Nigerians are facing in the petroleum sector would be a thing of the past in Nigeria.
He said, “Efforts are on top gear to ensure all the refineries are functioning before the end of this year. Port Harcourt refinery today has about 90 to 95 per cent optimisation in terms of retrofitting, Warri is about 80 per cent and Kaduna is about 70 per cent. The Dangote refinery is ready to operate at any moment from now. So with all these internal consumption of fuel will not be a problem.
“We also found out that we have the opportunity to export our refined oil, that will also improve our exchange rate because we have started exportation, that is all about refinery. We are expecting the refinery to kickstart before this year runs out.
“This is not a paper talk , our committee went for oversight on this . What I am telling you now, it was demonstrated and we saw it . We went there ( to the refineries), we looked at everything , it is not that we sat in our office and be talking, we went to Kaduna, we were in Port Harcourt, we were in Lagos and Warri as well, just to ensure what they are telling us is not just on paper,” the Senator added.
The senator who appealed to Nigerians to be patient with the current administration of President Bola Tinubu, said the president was working rigorously to ensure that things worked well for the people of the country.
” Someone that is sick would be fed gradually before the person becomes fat . Nigeria was sick before and what the current administration is doing now is a recovering plan, we are trying to do damage control but that cannot be done in a day. President Tinubu is trying his best to ensure the country stabilises. You can see that interventions are coming from different angles now. I will only appeal to Nigerians to be patient a bit and see how this government is going to perform.”
“In our senatorial district, we have also carry out some people-oriented projects to include lighting of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, even some places in Owo and Ikare and even Akoko North-West LGA, we have asked them to start boreholes, we are also working on an immediate response from the community on emergency issues, we also distributed on palliatives to people, we distributed rice and fertilizer to the farmers,through the farmers association, to encourage farming on our land, we gave between 600 to1000 students scholarship, to mention a few,” he stated .