By Shakirudeen Bankole
PRESIDENT of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), Festus Osifo, has asked Nigerians to hold the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government responsible for any inconveniences that may arose from the union’s industrial action, (strike) which commenced Monday, November 9.
Speaking on the Channels Television Sunrise Daily, Osiifo said the action was as a result of the government’s continued negligence, manipulative tendencies, and blatant refusal to address their complaints, which includes 22 months of unpaid arrears.
Contrary to public opinions, the union leader said they do not have reservation for the FG’s newly introduced payment platform — NAPPIMS, except its alleged incapacitation to accurately capture their remunerations.
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Osifo said the insistence of the Federal Government to pay all it’s agencies via the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, IPPIS, is not supposed to be applicable to them because of the off and onshore nature of their activities.
He lamented that the IPPIS has clearly exhibited inefficiency to address their concerns.
He said this was evident in the shortchanging of the arrears and allowances of some union members at Petroleum Training Institute, PTI; Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA; Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority; NNRA; and the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, were seized sometimes in the year
According to him, “IPPIS is not sufficient enough to take care of the payment of employee,” stressing that the claims has been substantiated “in the NNARA payment irregularities.”
“The platform doesn’t have the facility to take care of our specific earnings. For Goodness sake, people have worked so diligently and so hard to earn their wages, and it is just the right thing to pay them correctly. The government has not demonstrated to us that NAPPIMA will be able to take care of our specific earnings,” he lamented.
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The PENGASSAN President said their resolve to go on strike was a culmination of eight months of unfruitful dialogue with the Federal Government.
He said the strike supposed to have started two weeks ago but for the intervention of some good Nigerians, saying the action eventually became inevitable because of the seeming deliberate attempt by the Federal Government to humiliate their workers.
“We have been engaging the government on this same subject since the beginning of the year. But no tangible action has been taken.
“We have had several interfaces with the government –Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Petroleum, including Directors at the same Ministry. But what we found out was that the government was not committed to anything.
“The Minister (of Petroleum) is very aware. We have set up technical committee. We would fix meeting with them, and we would be there waiting for them from morning till evening, they would not show up.On several occasions, they will not show up.We have written several unanswered letters to them over this.So, it is the government that should be held responsible for this,” he explained.
We are monitoring the situation. If there is need to rev it up, we will, definitely
