The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Chief Timipre Sylva says the oil-producing communities are carried along in the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refineries by the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contractors.
He said that government on it part had ensured that communities would always participate in activities happening within their vicinity.
“It is not us government that will engage directly with the communities, we are government and we have been able to give the contract to an EPC contractor, part of the EPC contractors’ role is engagement with communities.
“How they are going to do the work on ground, sub-contract it, I cannot play the role of going to talk to the community; It is the EPC contractor that will talk to the communities. It is part of its package because it made provision for employment, community engagement; all that is part of the money for the contract.
“It is not for government to be going to the communities to discuss with them. We have done what we need to do and the contractor is going to site.
When he gets to site, the community, will of necessity, be involved,’’ he said
He added that the rehabilitation of the refineries were international tenders that international companies responds to and the process involves consultants.
According to him, at the tender state, the host communities were not involved because it is the process of selecting the EPC contractors.
He said that after the tender, the next work would be drawing, a lot of engineering work and planning, which also does not involve the communities.
“It is when they get to actual work on ground that community will be involved. There is no way the community will not be involved at that level.
“Nobody can actually avoid the community because if you are working in that community, you will need to give them employment.
“In fact, we are very mindful of that because we want to create jobs and if you are talking about the president, he is so committed to creating jobs.
“ You know, one of the mandates that have been given to my ministry and as minister is to create and add to the 100 million jobs that the president has promised over a period of 10 years.
“So everything we are doing, including the rehabilitation of Port Harcourt refineries, every other project have as part of it job creation.
“Of cause, job should be created, opportunities should be created in the communities and when the time comes for it, the communities will definitely benefit,’’ he said
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on April 6th signed EPC contract with Maire Tecnimont SPA, an Italian Company, for the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refinery Company (PHRC).
The kick-off meeting signalled the take-off of the project took place at the Port Harcourt Refineries on May 6th, 2021.
The NNPC Chief Operating Officer, Refineries and Petrochemicals, Yinusa Yakubu, said that out of the 3, 000 expected employees for the project, only 70 expatriates were expected to be engaged, the rest would be Nigerians.
Also, the Managing Director PHRC, Dikko Ahmed, assured that the NNPC remained a major stakeholder in the project.
” We have met with the host communities, we just don’t want them to create employment, we want them to be partners in this project and we can do it in various ways.
” Employment, they will have priority in that but there are other things they will require that we will be ready to do for them as we journey into this project, ” he said.
He noted that the communities would partner with the contractor to have a peaceful environment for the project.
