Despite a proposed meeting with the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, and the Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, the leadership of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has remained firm in its resolve to embark on a strike action on Thursday.
PENGASSAN declared that the strike action would be total as it was called because of the government’s insensitivity to fix some of the issues plaguing the oil and gas sector.
Ngige and Kachikwu are expected to meet with the leadership of PENGASSAN and the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) on Thursday morning with hopes of finding solutions to the problems at hand.
However, as at Wednesday, PENGASSAN’s Public Relations Officer, Emma Ojugbana said he was not aware of any scheduled meeting for Thursday with the Federal Government.
He maintained, while speaking to Vanguard newspaper that the strike would commence and it would be a total shut down of activities.
He said, “The strike will hold today. I am not aware of any meeting organised by anybody with our association. Our leaders in various zones are mobilising and it will start midnight today.”
He further said the association had been pestering the government over Joint Venture Funding and the non-passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) among other issues.
The PIB is still pending at the National Assembly even as the association has not seen any positive results from the government in respect to its requests.
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