Strike: We have surplus petrol, NNPC tells PENGASSAN
Following the order by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, to its members to leave their duty posts from Thursday, July 7, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, on Tuesday, said it has enough petrol in store to last over 30 days.
The Daily Times reached out to NNPC’s Head of Public Affairs Unit, Mallam Garba-Deen Mohammed, who said the Corporation has budgeted 45 million litres per day. He disclosed that Nigeria’s daily consumption is not up to the amount budgeted, amounting to surplus.
“We currently have more than 30 days sufficient of PMS at 45 million litres daily consumption (our real consumption is less than that). So we are pretty comfortable and more cargoes are coming in,” he said.
PENGASSAN had also ordered its four zones, which include Lagos Zone, Port Harcourt Zone, Warri Zone and Kaduna Zone, to commence sensitisation of its members with details of the planned action as from Monday, July 4, 2016.
The strike, according to a statement signed by the PENGASSAN Acting General Secretary, Comrade Lumumba Okugbawa, will affect all sub-sectors of the oil and gas industry, which include the upstream, the midstream and the downstream sectors.
In a memo dated July 4, 2016 and addressed to all zonal chairmen, secretaries, all branch chairmen and secretaries, the Senior Staff Association directed its members to embark on gradual withdrawal of services from their various offices, sites and production facilities as from Thursday, July 7, 2016.
The memo, which was signed by the Acting General Secretary, PENGASSAN, cited the inability of the Federal Government to honour agreements contained in May 12, 2016 Communiqué as the reason for calling for the strike.
It listed some of the issues to include lingering irregular Joint Venture funding and Cash Call payment arrears, lack of a clear cut direction on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), forceful co-option of government agencies in the industry into the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), and spate of redundancy and retrenchment in the industry.
The Association said that several efforts to engage the government to forestall the strike were frustrated by the Government.
PENGASSAN stated that sequel to the above subject, the Association tried to engage the Federal Government on May 24, 2016, which was inconclusive. The engagement was later fixed for June 23, 2016, which did not take place and again for June 30, 2016, which was unceremoniously cancelled with no date given.
“We see this as a deliberate attempt by the Government to frustrate the discussion of the myriad of issues raised in the communiqué, which are critical to the survival of the Oil and gas industry in the country.
“Among the burning issues raised is that of the JV Funding/Cash Call arrears, which has stalled new investments and the creation of jobs in the industry and which has consequently brought about massive job losses in the industry.
We have equally noted with great dismay that our tertiary institutions keep churning out graduates with no or very limited job placement opportunities for them. Even for those that are fortunate to have jobs, it has been tug of war getting their salaries paid as at and when due and are faced with redundancies on a regular basis also, especially in the service sector,” the association said.
