Daily Independent Online.
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Thursday, June 17, 2004.
Labour not responsible for delay in sale of refineries,
says PENGASSAN
By Bimbo Kesington,
Reporter
The Petroleum and
Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has denied
allegations made by the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises
(BPE), Dr. Julius Bala, that Labour was responsible for the delay in the sales
of the nation’s refineries.
In a statement
signed by PENGASSAN’s General Secretary, Dr. Mojibayo Fadakinte, the oil workers said,
“ The Federal Government through the BPE has refused to follow the due process
on the privatisation issue as the BPE has always been in a hurry to dispose of
the refineries without considering the interest of Nigerians.”
According to
PENGASSAN, the issues and concerns of Labour which were raised and which were
agreed to be included in the privatisation programme of action by the BPE have
not been disclosed to Labour as a condition precedent to the sales of the
refineries.
PENGASSAN further
maintained that the Federal Government’s decision to privatise the
refineries without functional power plants would be equivalent to selling a car
without an engine. It maintained that selling the refineries in this poor state
would greatly depreciate their values and justify BPE’s initial agreement
to sell the refineries as scrap.
Condemning the
sales of the refineries in their current state, PENGASSAN stated, “ We
consider that selling the refineries in their current state will seriously
distort the deregulation process as Nigerians would be subjected to the dollar
import driven programme of the Federal Government because the buyers may not be
obliged to repair the refineries as fuel import will be more profitable to
them.”
PENGASSAN, however,
maintained that strategic national assets like the refineries can not be sold
at the whims and caprices of a cabal without carrying the community and
Nigerians along because the action may “provoke communities protest
against such sale.”
