Leadership (Abuja)
29 September 2008
The National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), and the Petroleum and Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), have announced their readiness to stop the planned privatisation of the Nigerian Gas Company and Pipeline Products Marketing Company .
The unions said they were reacting to a publication in the Vanguard Newspaper of Wednesday,September 24,which carried a story on the planned privatisation of the NNPC subsidiaries.
This was disclosed in Lagos during a press briefing organised by both groups held at the PENGASSAN secretariat, where they argued that the intended privatisation was a breach of the agreement position that 'government will divest only 51 per cent of its holdings under strategic partnering arrangement to a buyer with core technical and managerial competence in the petrochemical industry, in addition to providing evidence of financial capability."
The President of PENGASSAN, Mr. Babatunde Ogun, said; "we viewed with seriousness the publication of NCP/BPE as a deliberate attempt to mislead and misinform the public, it's not only a premature and defective step in the wrong direction, such kite flying approach will only succeed in further fanning the ember of acrimony between the agencies and the Nigeria labour force.
He stressed that if NCP and BPE failed to reverse their proposed privatisation, "our association will have no choice but to take appropriate labour action as shall be directed by the joint National Executive Council against such cross purpose and exclusive activity of the agencies."
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Leadership. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
