THE Federal Government yesterday hinted of new measures to address the lingering problems in the production and supply of petroleum products to most Nigerians.Besides the ongoing repairs of the four refineries, which have been operating at epileptic level, the government said that the Greenfield refineries it planned to set up in Bayelsa, Kogi, and Lagos states, would produce 400,000 barrels per day (bpd).To ensure uninterrupted operation and adequate maintenance of the four old refineries in Kaduna, Port Harcourt (two in Rivers State), and Warri (Delta State), the government said it had handed over the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) to their original builders.The measure, it said, had helped to eliminate middlemen, who were profiting from the repairs of the refineries that never worked at optimal capacity.The government's measures were announced in Lagos yesterday by the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mr. Labara Maku, ahead of the April 1, 2012 slated for the removal of fuel subsidy.According to him, the government would diligently execute the palliatives measures to cushion the effects of the policy to ensure that ordinary Nigerians do not suffer under the new dispensation.But Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi has described the controversial removal of fuel subsidy as a policy of the Federal Government and not a constitutional matter that the National Assembly can dissipate energy on.Fayemi said the only way to stop such unpopular decision was to vote out the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the next political dispensation, adding that as long as the PDP controls the centre, there was nothing anybody could do about the subsidy removal.Maku said the massive local refining of fuel through the seven refineries would turn Nigeria to an exporter of petroleum products.The minister told reporters at the Presidential Wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, that the refineries would be in their 'full capacities within 18 to 24 months.'Maku, who explained that there are two refineries in Port Harcourt, one in Warri, and another in Kaduna, said there are long-term technical contracts between the government and the original builders of the refineries.He said that there would be no more middlemen because the builders would be better placed to revamp the refineries.The minister said the government is keen on building the three new refineries to match its transformation agenda, adding that the new plants would process 400,000 barrels of crude oil into finished products daily and with the total of seven refineries, 'we will start exporting.'On measures to tackle the pains of the removal of fuel subsidy, he said the government had concrete remedies in place to mitigate the impact of the deregulation scheme on the vulnerable sections of the population.Maku explained that the government had also designed programmes to assist Nigerians in the aftermath of deregulation.'This programme centres around immediate intervention in mass transit situation in the country so that all transporters would receive assistance in terms of vehicles that would be given out to help mitigate the cost of transport in the aftermath of deregulation,' he said.He revealed that there were programmesby the government to intervene in the railways to offer Nigerians cheaper alternative transportation.His words: 'There are railway services between Lagos and Abeokuta in Ogun State right now and there are also railway services between Lagos, Ibadan (Oyo State and Ilorin (Kwara State), betweenMinna (Niger State) and Kaduna. We are revamping the rail line from Port Harcourt through Enugu to Jos (Plateau State) to Maiduguri in Borno State. That one is going on right now and we hope that in the aftermath of deregulation, we will revamp the railways and also build new rail lines that would travel faster and link some new areas.'Right now, we are almost going through with the dredging of the Niger to create alternative ways of bringing goods and services inland. We have dredged the Niger up to Baru. We are now doing maintenance dredging to keep it out of segmentation. The inland waterway ports are being built and that of Onitsha is completed.'So, all these are the projects we are doing to first of all create infrastructure that would have impact on the economy and we are hoping that we can get job creation especially through Information Communication Technology (ICT) and agriculture,' Maku said.The minister further explained that the government had initiated a programme to produce 450 metric tonnes of rice using the existing dams in the country, noting that the dams through private initiatives and government support would employ tens of thousands in the cause of production of rice.'Then, we are facing power squarely because with deregulation, we hope to deliver on the Mambilla hydro-electric project before 2015 and this will give us additional two, 600mw of electricity. We are also to generate power in 17 existing dams in the aftermath of deregulation,' he added.Fayemi told journalists in Ado-Ekiti on Monday night that the subsidy removal was 'anti-people,' adding that his party, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), was against the move.
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