By Davies Iheamnachor

PORT HARCOURT— Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN and Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, have urged labour unions and civil society groups to commence a sustained fight for the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB.

Chairman of NUPENG/PENGASSAN Joint Committee on the PIB, Mr. Chika Onuegbu, at a two-day workshop organised by the Rivers State Council of Trade Union Congress, TUC, in Port Harcourt,  Rivers State, advised civil society groups to synergize and mobilize Nigerians to compel the Federal Government to pass the PIB.

Onuegbu noted that it was pathetic for a country with high rate of unemployment, poor infrastructure and in economic recession to be losing over $200 billion investments as a result of the non-passage of the PIB.

He said: “The truth is that without an organised and sustained fight for the economic emancipation of Nigeria through the passage of a Petroleum Industry Bill that places national interest above personal and sectional interests, all efforts being made to revitalise the Nigerian economy will end up as a mirage and unsustainable as the reforms in the oil and gas industry will remain unending, motion without movement and the fundamental aspects of the reform will never be legislated upon.”