Fuel Crisis: NNPC workers shut down nationwide over ‘unbundling’

Angry NNPC workers have shut down operations of the NNPC nationwide following the ‘unbundling’ of the co-operation on Tuesday,  March 8, 2016.

Staff members and management arrived for the usual day activities on Wednesday, March 9, 2016 to discover access could not be gained into their various offices as a result of the strike.

What this spells for the economy and Nigerians is fuel scarcity as products cannot be lifted by NUPENG.

The effect is not expected to affect crude oil export except the DPR (Department Of Petroleum Resources) joins in this strike.

An emergency meeting was convened at 10pm on Tuesday the 8^th march, 2016 by group executive committee of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) to discuss the matter and a message was sent to its members.

“The GEC of NUPENG & PENGASSAN at its meeting of 8th March 2016, which started at 10:00pm, has extensively discussed the pronouncement of the GMD on NNPC UNBUNDLING. We observed that the GMD/HMSP totally disregarded due process and failed to engage STAKEHOLDERS. Hence, from midnight today, ALL NNPC LOCATIONS will be SHUT DOWN COMPLETELY until further notice. Further directives will be communicated accordingly.”

A staff member of the NNPC, who spoke on condition of anonymity to the cable newspaper, said that he was at the corporation’s building as of 7:30am on Wednesday the 9^th March 2016 but met “it barricaded by members of PENGASSAN.

The Minister of state for petroleum resources who also is the NNPC group managing director, Ibe Kachikwu had announced the creation of seven independent units on Tuesday, namely downstream, gas and power, refineries, ventures, corporate planning and services, and finance and accounts.

Kachikwu had said the distribution of subsidiary companies of the corporation would further be restructured into direct management of the divisions. Last week, Kachikwu announced that the government was planning to unbundle the corporation into 30 profitable companies.