Oil Workers May Commence Strike Thursday
From Juliana Taiwo in Abuja, 05.19.2007
All workers of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its affiliates have been directed to, come to work on Monday clad in red outfits as a way of expressing their angst over the sale of the Port Harcourt and Kaduna Refineries as well as the Stallion House in Lagos.
This is a mock exercise for a full-scale strike by Thursday should the negotiation between Government and their unions fail.
This is expected to lead to the closure of petroleum products depots, which may further lead to fuel scarcity in the country.
Also, workers at the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC) will cut gas supply to strategic investments, such as gas power plants.
The National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and their senior counterpart, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) NNPC branch, revealed yesterday in Abuja that their national bodies have okayed that from next Thursday, a total strike that will paralyse key oil and gas services manned by their members should commence, in protest to a breach of agreement by the Bureau of Public Enterprises on the sale of the Port Harcourt Refinery and Kaduna refineries.
The Bureau of Public Enterprises had on Thursday sold 51 per cent Federal Government equity in the Port Harcourt Refinery to Bluestar Oil Services Limited Consortium, owned by Aliko Dangote’s Equity Energy Resources; Femi Otedola’s Zenon Oil and Transnational Corporation for $561m.
The sole bidder for Kaduna Refinery, China National Petroleum Corporation failed to match the reserve price after offering $102m.
The Group Chairman PENGASSAN, NNPC, Mr. John Elibe at a joint press briefing in Abuja said, “we will be starting full blown strike by Thursday morning. That is if nothing seemed to happen by Wednesday mid night, we would start a full-blown strike. But we would start by engaging ourselves in prayer sessions early in the morning between 8am-10am. We would wear red dresses. And if by next week Wednesday night, a meaningful round table discussion does not come from government, the two unions would go on full blown strike.”
He said that President Olusegun Obasanjo might just be handing over big troubles to a new the government, if the issues are not well tackled before May 29, 2007.
“Our unions were not opposed to privatisation”, he said. “We only resented the manner that BPE sold PHCR without the necessary due diligence”, he said.
“It was in the same manner it sold out our monumental investment in Stallion House without our consent,” he said.
According to him the unions and BPE had signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) part of which that BPE would finalise the labour issues that are associated with the sale of the refineries and give the unions three weeks to explain the privatisation process to their members. And that the Unions would carry out their on due diligence on the prospective buyers.
“Is it not curious that government is in such a rush to sell these refineries, even when the buyers have not carried out due diligence on them”, he asked.
“Our workers will not allow they new owners access to the refinery unless the fate of the over four thousand workers to go are known and accepted by the unions.
On his part, the Group Chairman, NUPENG, NNPC chapter, Mr. Williams Ibiba Inko said his members are worried that the Port Harcourt Refinery was sold to investors who had no credentials of refining petroleum products, and as such doubted it the sales was to actually run the refinery or kill it for a more lucrative importation racketeering. He also wondered what would become of the refineries in the event of pipeline vandalisation, which government has not been able to tackle.
“What will be the fate of such organisation, the place will be closed down for months, the staff will lose their jobs,” he said.
He added that the sale of the refineries would also lead another round disengagement of staffers of NNPC, which had already reduced its workforce from 17,000 to 9,000.
“We are going to protest this sale, by ordering our members to down tools by Thursday, should we not reach an agreement before then”, he said.
He said the sale of Stallion House, which is owned 49% by NNPC staff, has led to a loss of N220 million in revenue to their Pension Scheme, a situation which he says is already a big burden to them.
