Like ASUU, oil workers reject controversial IPPIS, threaten to down tools

A major crisis may be in the offing in the nation’s oil and gas industry as the Petroleum and workers in the sector under the Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN) and the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) on Thursday threatened to shut down all oil operations by Sunday if the Federal Government failed to pay their salaries on Friday (today).

The oil workers, who had been on a warning strike since Wednesday over the insistence of the Federal Government to enrol workers at agencies under the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources under the controversial Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), converged at the Petroleum Training Institute, Effurun, where the threat was issued.

It would be recalled that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have been engaged in a long running battle with the Federal Government over the enrolment of university teachers under the IPPIS.

While the Federal Government had insisted on going ahead with the enrollment, ASUU maintained it’s hard stand against it, describing it as business venture for those promoting it.

PENGASSAN at the gathering on Thursday, also gave reasons why its members in agencies under the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources should not be enrolled on IPPIS, just as it invited the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chris Ngige, to note the reasons and advice the Accountant-General of the Federation and Minister of Finance appropriately on the need for the exemption.

In the notice to Ngige, which was signed by the General Secretary, PENGASSAN, Lumumba Okugbawa, the association insisted that five agencies of the FMPR should be exempted from IPPIS.

It listed the agencies to include the Department of Petroleum Resources, the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority, the Petroleum Training Institute, and the Petroleum Equalisation Fund.

Read also: PENGASSAN calls for removal of Chevron MD

It said: “DPR, PPPRA and the other agencies under the FMPR superintend the entire spectrum of the Nigerian oil and gas industry and by implication maintains physical presence in all oil and gas installations and services.

“This tie their terms and conditions to the dynamic and complex operations of the oil and gas industry. The DPR operates the same conditions of service with NNPC and run same laudable and robust payroll system. The parameters of this payroll system would not fit into the IPPIS template.”

The union further argued that NNPC and DPR also operated the same closed pension scheme, which implied that they had common assets and liabilities, adding that staff of the agencies at various zonal offices run multi-purpose cooperative societies that were registered under various state ministries of agriculture and cooperatives.

According to the association, the cooperatives had certain financial obligations to fulfill which would be impossible once the department migrates to the IPPIS.

The Vice Chairman, Warri Zonal Council of PENGASSAN and Secretary of Regulators Forum, Prince Audu Oshiokhamele, while addressing the workers, warned that “if the salaries are not released by Friday, then all oil operations will be shut down by midnight of Sunday.

“We are surprised that the Ministry of Finance, on Wednesday, denied that they are not aware that our salaries have been stopped, while they are making every effort to see how they can placate the union.”

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