Group to Buhari: Probe refineries’ TAM contracts

A leading non-governmental organization, Nigeria Renewal Movement, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to investigate how contracts for the turn-around maintenance of the Old Port Harcourt Refinery with an installed capacity of 60,000 barrels per day and the New Port Harcourt Refinery and Petrochemicals Company with a refining capacity of 150,000 barrels per day were awarded secretly by ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to Chrome Oil Services.

In a recent statement in Abuja, NRM’s Acting President, Dr. Dagogo Brown, said the contracts were given out without competitive bidding.

“In fact, the contracts worth several millions of dollars were awarded without being advertised in any national media. Not even in the Federal Tenders Bulletin were interested contractors invited to bid,” Brown stated.

Calling the contracts awards “a clear violation of due process,” the NGO said Nigerians were not aware of the existence of the items until the chairman of Chrome, Emeka Offor, spoke to journalists recently in response to the criticism by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in an interview last week with Premium Times that he was awarded the contract to do the TAM at the 125,000 barrels per day Warri Refinery and Petrochemical Company in 1994.

Obasanjo claimed that the TAM was not properly executed, the group said. Brown added: “No one knows when the contracts were awarded, the contract sums, the timelines and conditions. Indeed, Nigerians were never told by the Jonathan government that there was any kind of move to fix the refineries.”

The government rather kept on telling Nigerians that the refineries had become practically useless on account of old age and lack of maintenance over the years, a statement meant to justify the continued importation of petroleum products by a cabal milking the country dry.

“It was the popular election of a wellknown anticorruption leader, President Buhari, on March 28 which forced the contractor to mobilise to site and work for 24 hours every day of the week, including weekends,” he contended.

NRM said the TAM typically takes fewer than 90 days, claiming that their investigation revealed that the repairs of the two refineries started in April shortly after Buhari’s election victory. He stated that the “hurried, frenetic execution of the TAM contracts for both the old and new Port Harcourt refineries since the election of President Buhari shows that it has dawned on all and sundry that Nigeria is now moving in a new direction.

It is no longer business as usual for contractors and their collaborators in different ministries, departments and agencies.

“Still, Buhari owes the nation and indeed the international community which repose great confidence in his personal integrity and leadership abilities the duty to get to the root of how such colossal amounts of contracts were awarded secretly to a firm promoted by someone with an awful record in this field.”