Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, has threatened to resume its suspended strike if the federal government refuses to enforce the implementation of an agreement reached among the tripartite partners in the industry.
This was contained In a letter addressed to the Minister of Labour and Productivity dated August 22, 2016 and signed by the acting General Secretary, PENGASSAN, Comrade Lumumba Ighotemu Okugbawa.
It stated that since the agreement was signed over a month ago, there was not much progress or commitment towards implementing the tenets of the agreement.
Copies of the letter were sent to the Director General of the Department State Services (DSS), the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC) and the General Manager, National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS).
The union urged the minister to intervene by calling on the defaulting managements who had refused to implement the agreement, to order so as to avert another round of nationwide strike.
PENGASSAN recalled that the agreement was reached at the end of the conciliation meetings held at the instance of the Minister of Labour and Employment with PENGASSAN, the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and other stakeholders on July 12, 14 and 21, 2016 in Abuja.
The letter read in part, “It is over a month now since the last communiqué was reached and we can say in summation that no much progress has been achieved. This of course is making our members restive and we are under tremendous pressure to bring about a total resolution on all the contending issues.
“We are constrained therefore to note with great dismay that most of the companies are foot-dragging and have resorted to time-wasting tactics in order to deliberately frustrate the process.”
The union listed the companies that have refused to honour their own parts of the agreement to include Mobil Producing Nigeria Contract Staff Forum, Fugro Nigeria Limited, Petrostuff Nigeria, Tecon, Frontier Oil Limited, Universal Energy Resources Limited, Pan Ocean, Halliburton Energy Services Nigeria Limited, CISCON, and Baker Hughes among others.
