George Onah
14 August, Sweetcrude, Port Harcourt – The leadership of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers association, NUPENG, has appealed to the National Assembly to examine the Petroleum Industry Bill in a manner that it must guarantee the future of Nigerian workers in that sector in line with global best practices.
“As representatives of the people, we have confidence in the legislators at the National Assembly and believe that they would protect the interest of oil and gas and all Nigerian workers”.
In a statement by the Producers Forum in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Saturday, the associations said it wants the bill to be made available to Nigerians before it is passed into law and that “all collective agreement in the sector will be carried along”.
Signed by Comrades Amoshuka Daniel, Cajetan Akpan chairman and secretary respectively, the group called on the minister of petroleum to “take another look at the bill and effect changes for the interest of host communities and oil and gas workers for the sake of a peaceful working relationship”.
No Nigerian worker, the associations begged, should lose his/her job as a result of the Act and that casualization of any form in the industry will be strictly forbidden, calling for the accessibility of the bill to all Nigerians
The groups said the policy should not be used in enslaving Nigerian workers and appealed to the “management of Chevron and Texaco to reconsider their position on our members whose appointments were recently terminated”.
It says the bill should be investor friendly for the continual growth of the oil and gas sectors and should not be hostile to the business community so that it does not scare investors in the industry “because the average Nigerian will be the loser in the face of such hostile policy.”
The forum said it wants the legislators to update Nigerians on the progress of the bill so far, also that it was “in the same position with the submission made on the bill by the national secretariat of the union”.
