FG PLANNING TO SELL REFINERIES TO CRONIES-OIL WORKERS
Oil workers, under the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN) and Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), accused government of blackmailing members over its opposition to the plan sales of the refineries as scraps to cronies secretly .
Presidents of the unions, Comrade Ndukaku Ohaeri and William Akporeha, said in Lagos that the development had caused the government to embark on cheap blackmail against their members on account of perceived opposition to the act.
The reaction of the unions’ helmsmen is coming after a recent virtual interview of Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, where he disclosed that the sorry state of the refineries should be blamed on the attitude of workers who, despite the non-functional nature of the refineries in the last three years, are still receiving salaries and had even threatened to embark on an industrial action when the Group Managing Director of the NNPC threatened to sack supporting staff in the refineries.
The workers punctured the minister’s position, saying it was laced with falsehood and misrepresentation, adding that government should be blamed for the neglect, inefficiency, incompetence, lack of transparency, and policy somersault in the running of the nation’s refineries.
Nigeria’s refineries posted a cumulative operational deficit of N9.6 billion in January this year, according to the report of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) which manages the country’s three refineries – the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company, the Port Harcourt Refining Company, and the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company.
