Foremost Economist and Chief Executive Officer of Financial Derivatives Company (FDC), Mr. Bismark Rewane, has said that the Federal Government ought to have sold the government-owned refineries to the Dangote Industries Limited.

He said Nigeria would have saved billions of dollars spent on turnaround maintenance if the government had privatised the refineries.

Rewane however warned that Nigeria should not waste money in rehabilitating or renovating airports.

He spoke in Lagos while delivering a keynote speech at the 29th annual conference of the League of Airports and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) with the theme, “Financing Aviation in Nigeria: Risks, Opportunities and Prospects.

The economist, however, cautioned against spending huge amount of money renovating airports while calling for the concession of the airports.

His comments came amidst plan by the federal government to spend N712bn to renovate the old terminal of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos.

The planned renovation, according to the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr. Festus Keyamo, would be comprehensive and involve stripping the terminal built over 45 years ago to its foundation.

However, Rewane advocated the concessioning of airports instead of spending such an amount of money to renovate when the terminals could have been concessioned.

He stated that this is imperative to avoid experience with refineries which gulped billions of naira.

“It would have been better if we sold the refineries to Dangote,” he said.

He stated that the advent of Dangote refineries is a relief for Nigeria to reduce importation of refined crude (Daily Trust)