PETROLEUM and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) wants government and other stakeholders in the country to find a lasting solution to the violence in the Niger Delta and pipeline vandalisation across the country.
Speaking at the opening of a 3-day workshop organised by Lagos Zone of the Association in Ibadan yesterday, President of PENGASSAN, Comrade Peter Esele said all stakeholders must work together to ensure that those working in the oil and gas sector of the economy do their jobs in peaceful and conducive environment.
According to him: �the industry is still faced with many challenges and no sub-sector of the oil and gas sector is spared. The implementation of the Oil and Gas Industry Committee (OGIC) report has continued to decimate our ranks in the industry like the recent event in Eleme Petrol-Chemical Company Limited. The kidnap and killing of workers in the Niger Delta region has continued to pose serious threat to the security of our members and other workers in trhe region,which has more than 75 percent of workers in the oil industry in Nigeria.
“Vandalisation of oil pipeline by economy saboteurs have continued to keep our refineries without crude to refine leaving the entire nation to depend on imported petroleum products for demostic consumption and therefore, pushing us to the vagaries of the politics of international oil pricing.
�On the other subsectors, we are faced with outright casualisation of permanent job positions and other unfair labour practices which intent is to further decimate labour.”