Tag: PENGASSAN

Coming at the time ordinary Nigerians are going through a period of unprecedented hardship, the ongoing strike by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) is one strike too many. It is not only insensitive but inhuman. The absence of oil Petroleum Equalisation Fund workers  to certify all bridging vehicles at depots in Apapa will most likely create more hardship for consumers outside the South-west including Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory where fuel queues were reported to have resurfaced last week. Of course for self-serving PENGASSAN and its members, that development called for nothing but celebration. And that was exactly what its spokesperson, Emmanuel Ojugbana did when he spoke of ‘total compliance with the strike by workers of government agencies such as ‘Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), Nigeria Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NNRA), Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC) and the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEFMB) headquarters’. He did not forget to add that ‘there was also compliance by PENGASSAN members in NNPC office, Shell, Total, Port Harcourt Refinery Company (PHRC) and Lagos where even those at the jetties and other critical sections where crude are lifted also abandoned their duty posts”.

It wasn’t as if PENGASSAN and its men have ever been known to fight on the side of the people. Except for the brief period it stood by the people during the resistance against military tyranny following the annulment of MKO Abiola’s victory in 1993, a support greatly influenced by the personality of Kokori, the body has always fought to protect the narrow and selfish interest of its members. As it was in the past when they threatened or actually held the nation to ransom over mundane issues such as ‘non-creation of new jobs, delayed payment of ‘accrued deferred benefits’, discipline of erring branch chairman and casualisation, their current strike is all about PENGASAN and not Nigerians who are today paying for the consequences of massive corruption in the oil sector in which PENGASAN members cannot claim to be bystanders.

And what are their grievances? They include: ‘Forceful co-option of government agencies in the industry into the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), loss of jobs by PENGASSAN members including “key union officers and national officer” due to downsizing by some employers such as Fugro, Universal Energy, Frontier Services and Petrostuff’.  This was followed by some strange demand to be met within seven days. They want government ‘to end anti-labour practices by employers’ at a time millions of Nigeria are without work while a few employed even by government, are owed  areas of salaries running to many months. They also want government to decree industrial harmony between their members and ‘H15, IEME Chevron, Universal Energy, Tecon and Avion Oil and Fugro by prevailing on these companies to reverse recent retrenchments”. And finally they want government to address the problem of ‘funding/cash call arrears, provide feasible guidelines to clear all outstanding payments and evolve a pragmatic system of funding the Joint Venture (JV) operations.”. They knew why government has not met those obligations but by choosing to embark on a strike which will further damage an already prostate economy, they made it clear they are not obliged to be government ally in its battle for economic recovery.

And I think they are right. The buck stops on the President’s table. That PENGASSAN whose members played pivotal role in the monumental corruption that took place in the oil sector is still in a position to inflict further hardship on Nigerians is the fault of a President who perhaps haunted by his past has chosen vacillation over governance and politics. Under presidentialism, the president and his party are to populate the over 500 small governments that are needed to implement their party manifesto. But after a year of government of change, many of these small governments including those PENGASSAN is now using to inflict further injury on Nigerians are still manned by those who want to continue business as usual.  For instance not a few Nigerians are wondering what we are still doing with equalization fund policy and those who exploited the policy to perpetrate fraud long after the total deregulation of the oil sector.   Before deregulation, Nigerian knew the equalization fund was a fraud. Fuel was never at any time sold at the same rate in Ilesha, Enugu or Sokoto as in Lagos. It was a federal government policy designed not to remove the pains of ordinary people but to empower party loyalists.

At a time the federal government was paying billions as equalization funds to some influential people where some individuals controlled as many as 500 trucks, some of which were allegedly deployed to smuggle subsidized fuel across the borders, farmers from  onion, beans and yam producing zones of the north transported their farm products to Lagos market without equalization subsidy. Oshogbo traders were in Maiduguri and beyond to procure items while northern traders could be found in the remote parts of the south-east to procure what their customers needed. This was the pattern of trade between Nigerians long before amalgamation and long after independence. Multinationals such as UAC, Cadbury, Liver Brothers, Nigeria breweries etc, have their distribution network for their goods. Equalisation fund in the oil sector was a political elite-inspired policy designed to defraud the people.

The policy thrust behind the creation of PPPRA was not different. It was set up specifically by those who wanted to recoup their expenses after publicly claiming they sold their private houses to contest the 2003 election. The bill was passed within three months. And as expected,  ‘PPPRA with a staff of 249, supervised by an unwieldy 22 man strong board, earning scandalously whopping salaries and allowance of N57.9billion per annum’, has  served only the interest of those who set it up. In 2011, under Dr.AhmaduAlli as its chairman and Alison-Madueke as supervising minister, the number of fuel importers moved from about half a dozen to 128. In 2011, the body put consumption of fuel by Nigerians at 60.25 million litres. But a House probe which confirmed that PPPRA presided over the theft of N1.7 trillion by PDP stalwarts, their siblings and their fronts in 2011 was to later put the actual 2012 consumption at 39.66 litres.

As it turned out, the desperate men who created PPPRA in 2003 merely duplicated the functions of Pipelines and Product Marketing Company, (PPMC) set up in 1988 to “profitably and efficiently market refined petroleum products in the domestic as well as export markets, especially in the ECOWAS sub-region, provide marine services and also maintain uninterrupted movement of refined petroleum products from the local refineries.” Even if President Buhari is not aware of the above, the deregulation of the oil market with kerosene selling at between N220 and N300 as against government post regulation fixed price of N83,without a whimper from PPPRA makes the scrapping of the body along with much abused equalization funds and others so recommended by the Oronsaye’s report more imperative.

One of the reasons Nigeria voted President Buhari was their confidence in his ability to make our refineries work and stop the haemorrhage in the fuel sector. And if PENGASSAN men in Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), Nigeria Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NNRA), Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC) and the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEFMB) headquarters’ as well as NNPC and Port Harcourt Refinery Company (PHRC), who want business to continue as usual are the reasons he will fail Nigerians, it is time he stops vacillation and got them off his back.