By Mercy Gadia
Abuja,FCT—Chairman Senate Committee on Downstream Petroleum sector, Senator Sumaila Kawu (Kano South) on Tuesday said the committee has resolved to take a tour of the nation’s refineries to ensure public refineries work to alleviate Nigerians suffering.
MultiNews gathered that the committee will after the tour invite the leadership of the downstream petroleum sector to have an interactive session and agree among themselves on how to revive the refineries to get back to work.
The lawmaker disclosed this at the end of strategic meeting of the committee to find a way forward for the sector.
“if you look at the challenges facing the country today, it boils down to the petroleum sector crisis, the committee has agreed that getting the refineries to work again will reduce petroleum pump price, which will make “Nigerians to start smiling again”,Kawu asserted.
Emphasizing the good turn out by members of the committee Kawu said it showed empathy towards Nigerians.
“we are the representatives of the people, everybody is feeling it in his body. We must do something drastically to end the
suffering of Nigerians”.
“We want to have a situation where we refine our crude in Nigeria, reduce the pressure on the exchange rate for the economy to move forward”. He added
He also said after fixing the refineries, the Ad-hoc committee will hold a public hearing to hear from Nigerians their opinion on the future of the refineries: perhaps want us to give them to private investors or we continue to retain them as government owned companies.
Senator Sumaila Kawu, who is also the Chairman Senate Ad-hoc Committee investigating turn around maintenance (TAM) of Nigerian four refineries that has consumed over N11 trillion naira since 2010 said the two assignments are almost the same, except that the Ad-hoc committee has additional responsibility outside the purview of the Downstream Petroleum committee.
He however said, they have agreed that both committees will work together to bring results to Nigerians, adding that “all the Senate is looking for is results.