By Victor AhiumaYoung

Former employees of Brittania-U Nigeria Limited, have pleaded with the Federal Government through the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Heineken Lokpobiri, to intervene in their unpaid gratuities and other benefits.

According to them, “some of us are late, some are sick,(a staff at present, is suffering from stroke) and some are unable to get better jobs. This is because their marine documents are outdated and the management has held on to the entitlements which would have used to solve these various needs.”

In an open letter to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Evans Anyanwu, on behalf of the affected staff, among others, said “We use this medium to appeal for your help in getting  our entitlements and gratuity from our former employer who dropped us from employment as a result of our joining the union PENGASSAN.

“Brittania- U Nigeria Limited is the operator of OML 90 in Ogulagha kingdom Focadoes. It has five vessels under its fleets namely brittania-U 1 ( an FPSO), brittania-u 11 (a barge), brittania-U 111 (a tug boat) . Also ownered by the company are Prince Edward (a service boat), Princess Royale (a service boat) and Northern Princesses (A DP 1 service boat).

“The Barge Brittania-U 11 is towed by the Tug boat Brittania-U 111 transporting about 40,000 barrel of crude oil every two weeks from our production facility in Focardoes to Chevron tank farm in Escravos.

“We were employed by the company at various times with letters of employment from the management and were given entitlements in our letters of employments. But the company failed to fulfill its obligations stated in our letters of employment. To this effect, we decided to join the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, a well recognised senior staff union in the oil and gas sector.

“PENGASSAN wrote a letter  to the company management on the 14th November 2017 informing it  of our decision to join the union  and introduced our branch executives.

Another letter was written on January 17, 2018, requesting for a meeting with management of brittania-U, which the company failed to honour.

“Letters were written to the management from the office of the Director, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment regarding this issue and the right of staff to join the union among other conditions of service such as the use of speed boat during crew change.

“The failure of the company to provide fire fighting equipments on the FPSO such as jockey pump. Overstay of some members onboard vessels even after their crew change is long overdue. Failure to pay staff their entitlement as contained in our letters of employment. Non payment of loading and off-loading allowances to staff.

“Non-payment of Leave/vacation allowance  to staff. Non-payment of 13 months allowance to staff. The company’s failure to pay its part of the contribution of staff Pension Trustfund, our pension manager among others.

“These letters were dated on 14th August 2018,  29th August 2018 and 27th November 2018, all to no avail.

“The next step the management took was to send the then Human Resources Manager to the Warri office to deliver letters of termination of appointment to staff.

“We have tried all means to get management of Brittania to pay us our gratuities, entitlement, emolument and its part of  Pension contribution to no avail.

“Some of our staff are late, some are sick,( a staff is currently suffering from stroke) and some are unable to get better job opportunities because their marine documents are outdated because the management has held back the entitlements which would have use to solve these various needs.