NLC laments absence of CNG infrastructure

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN) has called for an investigation into why the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries were shut down a few months after they resumed operation.

President of the union, Festus Osifo, while speaking at a joint briefing by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) on the sideline of the just-concluded International Labour Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, also defended the continued engagement of workers in the refineries despite the parlous state of the facilities.

Against popular belief that workers in comatose Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries are redundant collecting salaries, emoluments and benefits without doing any work, Osifo has leapt to the defence of the staffers.

Explaining that it is wrong to assume that the workers in the refineries can function only at the refineries. He added that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has about 12 Strategic Business Units (SBUs) where the workers can be deployed when the refineries are shut in.

Osifo explained: “Is it the fault of the workers that the refineries are not working? It is the workers’ responsibility to go to work, but it is the employer’s responsibility to provide the tools with which they will work. 12 SBUs in the NNPCL offer different roles and functions. The refineries are just one of the SBUs. Over the years, whenever the refineries were not working, 90 per cent of the staff of the refineries were transferred to other SBUs, which is referred to as ‘minimum manning’.

Osifo, who is a petroleum engineer by training, went on a lecture adventure saying the refineries even at their worst state, still needed to be maintained over the years to retain some level of serviceability making them reparable.

His words: “Engineering has its processes. The reason the refineries can be revived is because engineers were on the ground executing the basic maintenance. Then again, there is routine maintenance in all engineering processes. So, to think that the refineries not working is tantamount to workers being idle is to display the highest level of ignorance.”

The PENGASSAN chief also disclosed that the reason for the closure of the refineries is unknown to the union. Despite the fanfare that heralded the introduction of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) as a fuel option for Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), the near absence of key infrastructure needed for effective distribution has frustrated the initiative.

President of NLC, Joe Ajaero, at the joint briefing, lamented the economic hardship brought upon workers as a result of the removal of subsidy on petrol and the absence of an alternative that CNG was touted to be.

He said: “Certain developments that happened that have brought us to where we are today. From the standpoint of the labour movement, when the government removed the fuel subsidy, we decided to support the adoption of CNG as a policy option. But more than one year later, only a few stations are in the country. Lagos and Abuja are reputed to have a few stations.