Fuel scarcity may spread across Nigeria from
Monday as oil workers brace for showdown
with the Federal Government over various
unresolved labour issues.
Authoritative sources told PREMIUM TIMES on
Sunday that the oil workers, under the aegis
of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff
Association [PENGASSAN] and their
counterparts in the National Union of
Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers
[NUPENG], are set to commence nationwide
strike Monday.
The decision to strike is sequel to the
expiration of the notice to government for the
resolution of some labour issues affecting
their members as well as other national issues
affecting the operation of the petroleum
industry.
A national official of PENGASSAN, who asked
not to be named because he was not
authorised to speak on the matter, told
PREMIUM TIMES that some of the contentious
issues include the decision of the
management of Total Nigeria to sack the
PENGASSAN zonal Secretary in Port Harcourt
and the lack of promotion for workers of the
Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF).
According to the official, the workers’ unions
are concerned that the Petroleum Industry Bill
(PIB) sent to the National Assembly for
consideration and approval more than two
years ago is yet to be passed.
“We (the oil workers) have sufficient reasons,
based on information available to us, to
believe that the law makers are not prepared
to pass the law, even as the state of the
country’s petroleum industry has continued to
deteriorate as a result of the absence of a
regulatory and legal framework for the
industry,” the official said.
Part of the information available to the oil
workers, he said, have to do with a plot by
the Senate to move a motion on resumption
this week to demand the setting aside of
further considerations and deliberations on
the PIB till the next legislative session.
The PIB was one of the key draft laws handed
over by the previous legislative assembly for
deliberation and approval by the incumbent
legislators.
“This does not augur well for the future of the
country’s oil industry, as new investments
would continue to elude the country, to the
benefit of other oil producing nations around
the continent, if the law is not passed. This is
not acceptable,” the official said.
Besides, the oil workers said they have
uncovered plans by the government to go
ahead with the sale of the country’s four
refineries, which has always met stiff
resistance by Nigerians in recent past.
For some time now, the oil workers said crude
oil allocation to the refineries for local
petroleum products refining have consistently
reduced from 60 to 30 per cent and then to
zero.
The plan by government, the unions said, is
to make the refineries appear unviable and
their rehabilitation impossible as a way of
making their eventual sale attractive to
Nigerians.
The unions are also protesting against alleged
poor funding to the Petroleum Training
Institute [PTI], which was established as the
technology training institution for the
country’s petroleum industry.
No comments: