By Moses John
Abuja
As the strike by the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) entered day three today, the meeting called at the instance of the Supervising Minister of Labour and Productivity, Kabiru Turaki to end the industrial action was shifted to December 18, 2014.
This is because the angry workers could not turn up for the meeting which was scheduled for 11.30 am yesterday in Abuja.
Supervising Minister of Labour and Productivity, Kabiru Turaki, was absent at the meeting, but officials from the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, top directors at the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity and the Permanent Secretary, Clement Iloh, were all present at the meeting that lasted several hours.
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Labour when it became obvious that both NUPENG and PENGASSAN executives couldn’t turn up for the meeting, told reporters and others of the postponement of the meeting to Thursday.
He said: “This meeting was called by this ministry to trash out the issues that must have necessitated this current strike and other problems in the sector.
“However, this meeting has been postponed to Thursday, December 18, by 11am, we sincerely apologise for this postponement.”
The unions said the reasons for the strike was the inability of government to evolve new strategies to combat issues related with pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft, including delay by the National Assembly to pass the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).
NUPENG and PENGASSAN expressed sadness at the appalling state of access roads to refineries and oil depots’ facilities, as well as insecurity all over the country that has reportedly led to the death of their members.
However, the unions said that it will be having an emergency meeting of its National Executive Council (NEC) tomorrow ahead of the reschedule meeting with the government.
Sources within the unions told Blueprint that government must be serious about the workers demand as “we can’t take anything less than meeting our demand.”