By KUNLE KALEJAYE

Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), has urged the Federal Government to muster the necessary will to tackle oil theft and pipeline vandalism head on.

Speaking in Lagos on the menace, PENGASSAN President, Comrade Babatunde Ogun, condemned the criminal acts, describing them as economic sabotage.

He said that the union condemned the crimes in strong terms during its last National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the union on April 4, 2013, in Calabar, Cross Rivers State;

“During our NEC in Calabar, we condemned the increasing level of pipeline vandalism and the attendant crude oil and petroleum products theft and the apparent complicity of the security agencies as completely unacceptable.

“Pipe vandalism and the attendant crude oil and petroleum products theft constitute not just a drain on the nation’s resources, but also a major environmental hazard as well as threat to our democracy and national security,” he stated.

The union president also advised oil companies operating in the country and government to invest in modern technologies to reduce to the barest minimum, if not completely eliminate, the incidence of pipe vandalism and crude oil and petroleum products theft.

On deregulation, Ogun condemned government’s surreptitious moves to further increase the pump prices of petroleum products under the guise of deregulation, adding that appropriate the environment must be in place before the government can engage all stakeholders on the issue.

Reiterating PENGASSAN’s stand on deregulation, he said called on government to put in place the machinery to restore crude oil supply to the Port-Harcourt Refinery, as well as resolve the haulage challenges being faced by the Warri Refinery, in order to ensure that these refineries run optimally and reduce the nation’s dependence on imported products.

Expressing concern over the continuous underfunding of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF), and government’s share of its Joint Venture (JV) obligations, the PENGASSAN President argued that the paucity of funds is impacting negatively on the operational efficiency of these agencies.