26 February 2016, Abuja – The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) branch of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) Friday said that it would resort to moral suasion should efforts at engaging the federal government to appoint the agency’s Executive Secretary from the organisation fail.
The Ministry of Petroleum Resources had on February 22 deployed a senior staff from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Stephanie Iyoyo, to act as the Executive Secretary.
As government relieved the former Executive Secretary, Farouk Ahmed of his job last week, he handed over to the most senior staff (Mr. Moses Mbaba) four days after.
But confusion ensued in the agency when Iyoyo also assumed the office in the same capacity on Monday leading to the association’s protest.
Speaking with journalist at Abuja Friday, the branch chairman, Comrade Victor Ononokpono, said “What you are asking me is what is our plan B? We have decided since the national body has taken over the matter, to deploy moral suasion.”
Earlier, he said that the persistent deployment of NNPC staff to head the agency is a fragrant contravention of a portion of the act, establishing the PPPRA.
The association raised some question about the propriety of assigning an operator to be a regulator.
“How do you query your pay master? How do we align with global best practice? How do we promote control and checks in corporate governance?” Ononokpono asked, adding ‘These are the questions the protest seeks answers to.”
According to him, the union had on Tuesday restricted the protest to the Head-Office, thereby allowing free and seamless flow of supply and distribution of petroleum products while pressing for its demands in a peaceful manner.
The association called on Nigerians to lend their voices to issue.
