Nigerians may be in for a tough time over fuel scarcity as the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, has threatened to embark on strike on Monday.
Already, PENGASSAN has alerted its members to await its instruction to begin strike on Monday.
The planned strike is as a result of the failure to resolve the problem between the association and an indigenous oil company, Neconde Energy Limited.
The threat is contained in a statement signed by PENGASSAN spokesperson, Fortune Obi, and it reads:
“Following the failure of the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, to settle the rift between this body (PENGASSAN) and Neconde, the management of PENGASSAN has agreed to start the strike on Monday night (December 18th, 2017).”
PENGASSAN announced that it would hold its emergency Central Working Committee meeting in the early hours of Monday before embarking on the strike.
PENGASSAN had warned that it would embark on a strike if the government did not intervene in the crisis between it and Neconde Energy Limited.
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In a statement last week, the association had accused the oil company of treating its workers who are members of PENGASSAN, in contravention of the Nigerian Labour laws.
Apart from illegally sacking its members, PENGASSAN said the company failed to remit taxes and pensions deducted from workers to government without any apology.
It said in addition, any of their workers who joined PENGASSAN was treated as slaves and dismissed from work.
In the statement last week, the union called on government to compel Neconde to recall all the sacked workers within seven days and comply with the Labour laws of the country.
Following the call, Ibe Kachikwu was said to have met with the feuding parties but not success appeared to have been achieved in resolving the issue according to PENGASSAN.
It was in this vein that it has threatened to embark on strike to press home its demands.
