A Kenyan tribunal has dismissed a consumer rights organisation’s challenge to Nigeria billionaire Aliko Dangote’s planned crude oil refinery in the east African country.
The case filed by the Consumers Federation of Kenya (COFEK) was one of several legal hurdles to the 700 000-barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery being developed in Lamu port on Kenya’s Indian ocean coast.
The petitioner failed to prove that the refinery was a public private partnership (PPP) project and there was no legal basis for mandating disclosure of its documents, the ruling dated October 30 and seen by Reuters this Thursday showed.
In the petition, COFEK had asked Kenya’s Public Private Partnerships Petition Committee tribunal to set aside and reconsider any non-compliant approvals granted to the refinery.
The rights organisation also wanted the tribunal to order disclosure of details about the government’s plan to take a stake in the refinery, including the acquisition vehicle, share class and payment terms and evidence that there was public participation.
Dangote is looking to replicate his group’s 700,000 bpd refinery in Nigeria. He has offered regional governments a combined 30% stake in the Lamu refinery, which is scheduled to be completed in 2030.
–Reuters–
