The House of Representatives has resolved to carry out an investigative hearing as well as a comprehensive audit of funds spent on rehabilitation, repairs and maintenance of Nigeria’s refineries.

This followed the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance by Rep. Onofiok Luke (PDP-Akwa-Ibom) at plenary on Wednesday in Abuja.

Moving the motion, Mr Onofiok said that there was the need to ensure transparency and accountability in the rehabilitation of the refineries.

He said that this was pursuant to the recent approval of $1.5 billion (N575 billion), for the rehabilitation of the 32-year-old Port Harcourt refinery.

He said that the rehabilitation will be completed in 44 months with three-component funding from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), budgetary allocation provisions and Afrexim bank.

Mr Luke expressed concern that NNPC had allegedly spent about $25 billion in turnaround maintenance of the refineries in the past 25 years.

According to him, this latest development is coming after promises by the current administration that the government would no longer spend on the facility.

“Previous rehabilitation notwithstanding, the NNPC audit report last year revealed that three of the nation’s four refineries recorded N1.64 trillion cumulative losses in their 2014 to 2018 details.

“In spite of them not processing any crude oil in June last year, the three refineries still cost the country N10.23 billion in expenses,” he said

Mr Luke said that the three refineries processed no crude because of the rehabilitation work being carried out on them, adding that there was no associated crude plus freight cost for the three refineries since there was no production.

The House, therefore, mandated its Committee on Petroleum Resources Downstream to carry out an investigative hearing and conduct a comprehensive audit of the nation’s refineries.

The House mandated the committee to examine the performance bond, assurance, warranty and guarantees put in place for operating and maintaining the plants after commissioning.

The House urged the committee to report back for further legislative action within six weeks.

It urged the federal government to grant license and provide incentives for the building and construction of modular refineries in the country.