ABUJA 鈥 The trio of the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEP-ZA), One-Stop-Shop Committee on the 鈥楽ale of Crude in Naira鈥, and the Dan-gote Refinery & Petrochemicals Free Zone Enterprises have agreed to meticulously mid-wife the presidential directive on crashing domestic prices of petroleum products to enhance national energy security, and promote economic growth.
The three entities agreed to synergise their commitments to achieve the directive when the members of the committee paid a courtesy visit on the NEPZA鈥檚 Managing Director, Dr. Olufemi Ogunyemi, in Abuja.
The Federal Government established the committee to facilitate one-stop-shop process aimed to streamline the sale of crude oil to local refineries, par-ticularly the Dangote Refinery, by coordinating services from various regulatory, security, and other relevant agencies for smooth implementation.
Dr. Ogunyemi expressed con-fidence in the president鈥檚 vision and drive of achieving full do-mestic sufficiency in petroleum products, adding that NEPZA was prepared to cooperate and collaborate with the committee to achieve this mandate.
鈥淚nterestingly, the Authori-ty supervised the construction of the highly celebrated world class Dangote Refinery from the beginning to its inauguration, making it a success story for us.
鈥淭he mission for energy se-curity is half achieved because the Dangote Refinery & Petro-chemicals FZE is a registered Free Zone and as such contin-ues to benefit from the scheme鈥檚 incentives.
鈥淪ince the Federal Govern-ment has put a lot to ensure the establishment of the refinery, I believe the time has come for the entity to lead our drive for energy security, the managing director said.
This was contained in a statement on Wednesday issued by Dr. Martins Odeh,
Head, Corporate Communi-cations, NEPZA.
The NEPZA boss further stated that the refinery which had since commenced opera-tion with the delivery of 480 ves-sels so far, was proudly linked to producing a wide range of crude types and gradually meeting the country鈥檚 domes-tic demand for petrol, diesel, kerosene, aviation jet fuel, and for export.
He, therefore, noted that the sale of crude in naira would obliterate the vulnerability of the local currency against the dollar in crude transaction within the country.
鈥淟et me reiterate that the Free Trade Zone Scheme re-mains a key economic driver of our nation and so, we are happy that the Dangote Refinery is one of our shining stars that shall be used to drive this policy鈥欌, Dr. Ogunyemi said.
He further noted that: 鈥淭his visit cannot be more strategic as it brings together key interest groups, stakeholders, and rele-vant sister agencies that consti-tuted this committee to deliver a workable template that can guide this well-thought-out nai-ra-for-crude swap transaction for the benefit of our nation鈥欌.
Ms. Maureen Ogbonna, the committee鈥檚 coordinator, de-scribed the committee鈥檚 task as one of the president鈥檚 key interventions to reposition the economy, stating that it was a matter of time for the country to move away from billing do-mestic crude sale in dollar.