NNPC, DPR Workers Go On Strike

Workers of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) yesterday embarked on an indefinite strike over their managements’ refusal to fund the pension system as stipulated in the PENCOM Act.

The workers, under the aegis of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), had Friday staged a protest to the nnpc Group Managing Director office and presented a memo on their decision to down tool.

They also listed problems related to inadequate supply of crude to the country’s four refineries as well as failure to carry out major overhaul of the refineries.

One of the union leaders, who pleaded for anonymity, said with the strike, crude oil exports would be affected, gas supply to the power generation companies would be shut down and all activities at the jetties as well as depots would be suspended. The meeting summoned yesterday by the nnpc management with the unions ended deadlocked.

At the nnpc Towers in Abuja yesterday, our reporter gathered that official activities were hindered as some of the workers left before 1.00pm.

In Lagos, the workers’ leadership under the auspices of PENGASSAN and NUPENG held a closed door meeting with the nnpc management on the issue.

Meanwhile, queues of vehicles were yesterday witnessed at some filling stations in Abuja as the news of the strike broke.
The workers had last Friday issued a three-day ultimatum to management. The deadline according to Babatunde Oke, PENGASSAN media officer, expired yesterday morning.

Oke said all the workers at the NNPC branches nationwide had been mandated to shun their offices from today to press home their demand.

The National Pension Commission (PENCOM) had last week revoked the licence granted to the NNPC Pension Fund over failure to meet its requirements.

A letter dated September 8, 2014, addressed to the Group Managing Director NNPC, and signed by the Ag. Director General, PENCOM Chinelo Anohu-Amazu put the deficit in the scheme by NNPC at N133.56billion (inclusive of the N182.26bn receivable from NNPC) as of December 31, 2012.

The PENCOM is concerned that eight years after the grant of approval to continue with the existing scheme, the NNPC has failed to honour its promises to fund the deficit despite several reminders.