Jonathan sets 10-yr target to end fuel importation

If the words of President Goodluck Jonathan is anything to go by, the country will end the importation of petroleum products 10 years from now.

 

Failure to achieve this, the President said those in government should be regarded as failures.

 

He made the declaration when he received reports of the three task forces on petroleum industry – the committee established to design a new corporate governance code for ensuring full transparency, good governance and global best practices in the NNPC and other oil industry parastatals which had Mr. Dotun Sulaiman as its Chairman; the Committee headed by Dr. Kalu Idika Kalu which was charged with the duty of conducting a high-level assessment of the nation’s refineries and recommending ways of improving their efficiency and commercial viability and the Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force headed by Nuhu Ribadu.

 

The president, in his short remarks after receiving the reports assured that his government will surely make use of the reports, stressing that government was not hiding anything and the reports was not to investigate anybody in government but to look at the oil industry and tell government the best approach to maximize the nation’s revenue base.

 

Jonathan said: “I thank the Minister of Petroleum Resources for setting up the committees when I directed her to do so,” and commended the efforts of chairmen of the task forces and members for working day and night to produce the report, adding that “government will surely make use of these reports on the governance and control because it has to do with the reforms and we feel the oil industry needs to be reformed. Oil industry is an international industry and Nigeria’s case cannot be different and we as players must also do what others are doing. We cannot continue to lag behind. Oil is our mainstay and we have to do more, especially when we consider the fact that almost all the African coastal states are discovering oil and if we don’t really review our approach to oil industry and come up with a robust plan in terms of our relationship with investors and others, it is either they will abandon us and go to other country or they will be exploiting us at our own detriment and go and invest in other places and so we feel we need to look at the area of government and control.

 

“On the Task Force on Refineries, people make jest of us that we import what we have and export what we don’t have. We have crude oil yet we are busy importing kerosene, diesel, aviation fuel, petrol and these are products of crude oil, why do we have crude oil and still be importing the derivatives of crude oil? If we place our focus right, we should be having retail filling stations all over Africa and the world and generate revenue for Nigerians.

 

“We must give ourselves a framework and that is the reason why we want to deregulate to make sure the private sector takes over because it is disgraceful that we are importing any of this petroleum products. If in the next 10 years, this country is still importing petroleum products, then those of us who have the opportunity to be here, when we die they should write something against us saying we did not rule this country well.