Allison-Madueke said this when she spoke at the 2014 budget defence of the ministry before the joint Senate committee on petroleum resources (upstream) and Senate committee on gas.
The minister said that the exercise had only been put on hold for now since the unions had seriously fought against it in 2013.
“We did vote for privatisation to have started early this year and as you probably know, the unions fought us on that quite strongly so we stepped back for some time to look at it again at a later point”, she said.
“We met with the unions who stated at that time that they were not comfortable with privatisation and as a result of our negotiation we agreed to stand it down.
“We said we would stand it down for that period but we will still keep the discussion on the table with them.
“They themselves want us to continue discussing it to see if we can come to a point where they are comfortable with it so we are still in ongoing discussions on that”, the minister said.
She said that government had no business running any major infrastructure, adding that the only way the refineries could perform optimally was if they were privatised.
“I have always said that the government should not be in the business of running refineries.
“I don’t think it (government) should be running any major infrastructure.
“I think that the best way forward is for the privatisation of our refineries”.
She, however, said that the government was continuing with the rehabilitation of the refineries pending such a time when the unions would have been convinced that privatisation was the best option.
“The Federal Government is continuing with its rehabilitation programmes, which it would have continued with anyway, up to the time of the privatisation or sale at least to some extent”.
Meanwhile, Alison-Madueke also on Tuesday said that the Federal Government had no plan to increase the pump price of petrol.
She said this at the 2014 budget defence of the ministry and its parastatals before the House of Representatives committees on petroleum resources (upstream and downstream) and gas.
According to her, there is a strange rumour that the Ministry of Petroleum Resources is going to announce an increase in the pump price of petrol.
“I said categorically that we have no plan to increase the pump price of petrol anytime in the near future”, she said.
She noted that the development had only helped to instigate hoarding and diversion of petroleum products.
The minister said the ministry would flood the country with petroleum products next week.
“It was quite obvious that there was a hitch in supplies about a week ago and that had been remedied now”, he said.
She warned that any filling station caught in the diversion of petrol, be it private or government-owned would be sanctioned accordingly.
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