By Eberechi Obinagwam
The National leaderships of the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN), have said that the Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva, lied during an interview with Arise TV.
In a joint statement by the unions, they stated that the Minister’s comments were aimed to cover up long years of failure of Federal Government and successive Management of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to put the
nation’s refineries in functional and productive use.
The Unions said they have over the past five years
done everything possible to support the administration and the various
management of NNPC. But unfortunately, their collaboration and support have been taken for granted to the extent that the Minister of State for
Petroleum Resources and the Group Managing Director of NNPC are accusing them of sabotage and openly malign the integrity of the Union and association.
“This to us is not only nauseating but regrettable.” they said.
The Unions listed what they describe as lie in the minster’s statement as; One, That the Refineries have not been working for three years and workers have been receiving salaries and promotion.
Two, That the Workers were responsible for the sorry state of Nigerian Refineries and have always been an impediment to efforts to make the Refineries functional and economically operational.
And thirdly, that the Union threatens to go on strike when the Group Managing Director of the NNPC “threatened” to sack support Staff in those Refineries.
They said all the points the minister made are misrepresentation of the facts and falsehoods, adding that they find the comments most uncharitable and appalling.
The statement from the Unions read thus:
“It is a trite in the Labour Law that it is the responsibility of every worker to
make himself/ herself available for work while the employer provide tasks and
assignments for the worker to carry out.
We were therefore, bewildered to listen to an attempt by a serving supervising
Minister of the Petroleum Ministry to place the policy failure, unnecessary bureaucracies, lack of foresight, mismanagement and maladministration of the Refineries on the hapless workers.”
As a matter of fact, the Union and Association have offered several good advice on different occasions to successive Management of NNPC on how to put these Refineries in functional operations through various internal channels of communications and have generally restrained ourselves over these years from going public to wash the dirty linens of the Corporation in the public when these advice were thrown into the wasteland.
Only recently, the Union had sensitized its members in the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company’s Quick fix Start-up committee to deplore all their energy to ensure that the Refinery was brought back on stream.
Just when all was set, Management deflated all preparations and shelved the exercise. Information from Port-Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC) is the same: TAM and rehabilitation has been postponed to first quarter of 2021.
What then could be the crime of workers in that? It’s also on record that this regime has been in power since 2015, yet the Refineries have not been fixed even with all the funds pumped into it and all the sacrifices of the irrepressible workers.
Suggestions from the Union and the Association to adopt the NLNG model to revitalize the Refineries have never been given serious consideration by Government because of her ulterior motive.
On the purported threat of Group Managing Director of NNPC to sack workers, we wish to state here that it was actually no more a threat but that it had already been carried out with the sack of 850 support staff in the midst of Covid-19 pandemic throwing almost a thousand workers into hard financial situation without an iota of empathy or consultation with the Union.
The Union never threatened to go on strike, but only demanded to be engaged for proper discussion on the commensurate terminal benefits of these workers who had served or made themselves available for service for period ranging from 10 to 15 years.
We found it rather highly inhuman and unfair on the part of NNPC Management to sack these workers with only their last pay checks
after fifteen good years of their lives in NNPC.
Listening to the uncharitable tone of the Minister on the Contract Staff as if they are slaves and useless, calls for serious concerns by all well meaning Nigerians.
lf a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Group Managing Director of NNPC can dismiss Contract workers that have served for more than ten years continuously as if they are rodents what more can we expect from
lOCs.
The monthly salaries of twenty-five of these contract staff put together cannot equal a typical Management staff salary of same organization.
No wonder no oil and gas company in Nigeria employs any Nigerian on permanent basis into middle to lower level cadres again. Our polytechnic and vocational schools graduates have been doomed to life of slavery and poverty under the watch of office holders like this Minister and GMD.
It’s really unfortunate that a serving Minister of Petroleum Resources could trivialize a very sensitive matter such as this that puts the livelihoods and survival of hapless Nigerian oil and gas workers in jeopardy at a period like this when the novel Covid-19 pandemic is rife and dangerously prowling.
The Minister, who is yet to visit any of these Refineries, should note that turn-around maintenance of the Refineries has not been done for many years now despite money budgeted for them every year by successive governments.
Without being immodest and of course truth should be told, Government has not also been able to address litany of issues including pipeline vandalism from Warri to Kaduna, which also contributed largely to non-functionality of Kaduna Refinery therefore oil workers should not be blamed for this.
lt will not be appropriate for the Government to trade blames on this. Our Refineries cannot be sold just like that, they are huge national assets, they should rather be revitalized for security and strategic reasons; and operate profitably.
Painting the oil and gas Unions in bad light in the eyes of the public to cover up Government/Management deficiencies as captured in the video in reference is the most uncharitable thing to do on the part of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and our Union/Association take serious exception to it.
Our office holders should know and strongly note that we are in a democratic setting with well informed people and no Minister can do anything by fiat and the Union/Association will never be blackmailed by these cheap lies into
abdicating our constitutional responsibilities and obligations to our members.
We perceived the ill conceived and highly mischievous interview as attempt to
prepare ground for some uncharitable, unwholesome and obnoxious policies.
We are waiting and watching out for them to unfold while we put the general
public, Civil Society Organisation and other organized Labour on alert.
Our resolve to protect the rights and interests of our members and the oil and gas industry remains unshakable even in the face of these cheap blackmail and highhandedness of both the current Minister and the Group Managing Director of NNPC.
However, the union used this medium to call on the Minister of State for Petroleum and other relevant stakeholders in the industry that the Union and Association will not allow any
backdoor introduction of any policy be it privatization of these refineries or full
deregulation of the downstream sector based on importation of refined products.
Our refineries must be put into functional use without further delay.
Also, the leaderships of NUPENG and PENGASSAN further enjoin all our members to persevere and exercise extreme restraints at all times, as tough
times don’t last but tough people do.
