By VICTOR AHIUMA-YOUNG

PETROLEUM and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, weekend, threatened a nationwide strike should the Federal Government stop salaries of its members in government agencies over government’s refusal to exempt them from enrolment into the Integrated Personnel Payroll System, IPPS.

The affected agencies are Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR; Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA; Nigeria Content Development Board, Nigeria Nuclear Regulatory Authority, NNRA and Petroleum Training Institute, PTI.

PENGASSAN argued that in spite of a recent agreement reached with government in a meeting called by the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu, the association would resort to industrial action to protect its members.

PENGASSAN noted that in spite of its protest letters to the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation against their enrolment into the IPPIS as a result of  non-consideration of the peculiar situation in the petroleum industry, it went ahead to issue an ultimatum to the agencies threatening to stop workers’ salaries.

In a letter dated April 22, 2014, PENGASSAN sought the intervention of the Minister over some issues of concerns.

At a meeting that lasted for over eight hours, the union threatened to shut down all oil and gas installations in the country if the controversial payroll system was implemented in the oil and gas industry, arguing that the introduction of the IPPIS scheme would compromise effectiveness and efficiency in the system.