The Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) said the planned inauguration of Dangote Refinery was succour to a nation in dire need of an industrial renaissance.
The Director-General of NECA, Mr. Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, made this known in a statement on Thursday in Lagos.
“With the petroleum refinery and petrochemical plant as well as the fertilizer plant housed in Nigeria, it invariably implies that there would be no more importation of petroleum products.
“Rather, there will be export of finished products, availability of petroleum products, thus, putting an end to long queues and scarcity of petroleum products.
“A significant plus of this feat will be the attraction of foreign capital investments that the country desperately needs,“ he said.
The NECA boss said also, that the multiplier effect of its target 135,000 direct and indirect jobs for Nigerians and displacement of plastics imports in the fiscal space were a part of the economic springboard the refinery would bring to the Nigerian economy.
He said, in addition, that it would lead to skills transfer and technology acquisition opportunities with beneficial impacts on the downstream sector.
“This refinery in sum; is one edifice that will turbo-charge the engine of the Nigerian economy.
“It will also unstrap the strings holding the development of the economy and wade off external and domestic headwinds against efficacies of fiscal and monetary instruments,” he said.
Oyerinde said also that the refinery, with 60 percent of the production capacity, could meet the entire consumption needs of the country.
He said that the other 40 percent would be exported, generating a huge amount of foreign exchange.
According to him, this in no small measure, will impact positively on the country’s balance of payment.
“We call on government and other stakeholders to pay more attention to creating an enabling environment for organised businesses to thrive so that we have more private sector investment to re-engineer the nation’s economy,“ Oyerinde said.
