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Oil workers begin nationwide strike as conciliatory meeting ends in deadlock

By on September 17, 2014

Workers of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) monday resolved to commence a nationwide strike today following the failure to reach an agreement with the management of NNPC on a number of issues they are in disagreement with.

Some of the issues that had forced the workers to embark on a nationwide industrial action, THISDAY learnt, are the sudden withdrawal by the National Pension Commission (PenCom) of the operational license it gave to the NNPC to run an in-house pension fund management company for its workers.

A text message from the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) yesterday in Abuja confirmed that the workers will likely down-tool if the 12 midnight deadline it gave to the management of NNPC to broker an agreement with them on the adequate funding of the pension fund, commencement of the planned Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of the refineries as well as restoration crude supply to refineries elapses without any meaningful result.

PENGASAN said in the text message that all operations of NNPC will be shut down since there was no truce at the expiration of the deadline.

But efforts to get across to the Group General Manager Public Affairs of the NNPC, Ohi Alegbe, to provide clarifications on this were not successful as his mobile phone number was not reachable at the time of filing this report.

It is however understood that PenCom took the decision to withdraw the license of NNPC Pension Fund Limited on the alleged grounds that the company had overtime, failed to meet up with the extant requirements in its operation of the fund.

THISDAY sighted a letter that was addressed to the Group Managing Director of NNPC by the Acting Director General of PenCom, Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, in which the commission stated its knowledge of NNPC’s unwillingness to comply with extant provisions in the Pension Reform Act (PRA), 2004.

The PenCom letter was dated September 8, 2014. It partly highlighted the conditions upon which the operational approval was granted to the NNPC and which it has failed to meet, hence the licence withdrawal.
It stated that it had in 2006 granted temporary approval for NNPC Pension Fund to operate as a Close Pension Fund Administrator (CPFA), pending compliance of guidelines issued by the commission and the provision of the PRA 2004.

PenCom however noted that the NNPC failed to meet up with the pending provisions. It cited Section 50 (1) (g) of the PRA and clause (b) (i) of the approval conditions which provides that the scheme shall be fully funded at all times and that any shortfall shall be made up within 90 days.

It also explained that the NNPC violated Clause (b) (ii) of the approval conditions which provides that the funds and assets of the scheme shall be passed to licensed Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) of NNPC’s choice for management, NNPC however did not transfer all funds and assets to any licensed PFA for management, in contravention of the Act.

PenCom also said that the NNPC failed to transfer real estate properties on the pretext that the PFAs were not adequately equipped for the real estate
management, that it also failed to transfer all pension fund assets to the custodian, provide any undertaking to the commission since the approval of the scheme in July 2006 as well as provide evidence that employer and employee pension contributions were being remitted to the licensed operators as required by the Act.

However, some staff at the corporation who spoke with THISDAY on the condition that their names won’t be mentioned stated that they were addressed by their union yesterday at the Amphitheatre of the NNPC corporate headquarters, where they were asked to go home for now.

Meanwhile, rumours of the possible industrial action by workers of the NNPC yesterday suddenly pushed residents of Abuja to resort to panic purchasing of petrol from service stations across the city.

Swelling Queues of vehicles waiting to buy petrol were seen at the Forte Oil filling station in Maitama and NNPC mega station in Wuse 2, amongst others that were visited.

But, the NNPC monday assured its members of staff and the public that it was taking steps to avert a looming industrial action by its arm of NUPENG and PENGASSAN even as the National Pension Commission PenCom has given a 12-month widow for the corporation to comply with the Pension Reform Act 2014 as amended.

In a fresh directive dated 15 September, 2014, PENCOM stated: “In order to accommodate your concerns, the commission hereby grants the NNPC a transition period of 12 (12) months within which to ensure full compliance with the provisions of the PRA 2014”.

The corporation appealed to the leadership of the industrial unions to exercise restraint while it embarks on extensive engagement with PenCom to resolve the issues.

The NNPC noted that since the commencement of the scheme in 2006, the management and its staff have made a lot of sacrifice to maintain the existing scheme and any premature cancellation of the scheme may lead to avoidable labour disaffection across board.

While acknowledging the existence of some funding gaps in the scheme, the corporation informed stakeholders that measures have since been put in place to steadily bridge the funding deficit which stood at N298 billion in 2010 and has now been provisionally reduced to N85 billion as at June, 2014.

It stated that NNPC is in the process of transferring additional real estate property valued at several billions of naira to the scheme which is currently before the NNPC board for approval.

It noted that NNPC Pension Fund Limited had complied with the provisions of the PRA 2014, by transferring assets in equities, bonds, certificates of deposits and other marketable securities to the custody of PFA for management as directed by PENCOM since 2006.

“The NNPC pension fund has demonstrated its capacity to manage the scheme successfully by managing pension assets of over N250 billion for over eight years and maintaining an excellent record of administering and paying over 9000 retirees as and when due,” the corporation said.

The management called on members of the public not to engage in panic buying assuring further that plans are on top gear to address the situation.

 

[This Day]