Adamant: Hardest metal
Tuesday, March 25, 2003

ENERGY: Why fuel crisis persists — NUPENG

Nigeria: Double speak By Victor Ahiuma - Young Tuesday, March 25, 2003

AS Nigerians groan under the torturing fuel crisis despite being a major producer of the products, president of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Comrade Peter Akpatason, in this chat with EnergyThisWeek, gives insight to reasons for the un-ending fuel scarcity in the country.  He also speaks on the union's  preparedness to take on alleged anti-labour practices and employers in the industry.

Excerpts:

What is the union’s position on the un-ending fuel crisis?

Well, our position is that the government has not been sincere about its efforts to address the issue from the onset.  They made a mistake in attempting to give Nigerians the impression that the only way to solve the problem of fuel scarcity is to increase the pump price.  They wanted to increase the fuel price as a result of that they had to seize the opportunity of the gulf war threat as well as the Venezuela problem to create the artificial scarcity situation that we have.

The truth is that government has always been in a position to forecast such situations and make arrangements to forestall such developments or to absorb such shocks. That is what happens elsewhere in the world. People have reserves to address problems     like this.

Unfortunately, we don’ t have reserves in Nigeria. The government at the moment, rather than think of how to find solution of the fuel scarcity, is actually waiting to use that as an opportunity to increase prices. That exactly is why they have not been able to address the problem.

We want to see the attempt by major marketers to push for a price  hike as a furtherance of government plans. They are just acting as agents of government to give Nigerians the impression that without price  increase, it would not be possible to address the problem. But the truth is that government has all it takes to address the problem. They get a lot of revenue as a result of this increase in crude prices. What they are getting is so much that they can use just a little of it to subsidise the import for this period and after which the situation might stabilize and we would go back to the normal where they would not have to subsidize beyond what it is presently. But unfortunately,  because of their insensitivity to the needs and  problems of Nigerians, they have not bothered to do that. I think they owe us a duty in that respect.

The authorities have talked about low production of the local refineries and heavy dependance on import. Why is it that up till now,  we still talk about low capacity utilisation, can’t the government do something to increase the capacity of  local refineries?

Part of the insincerity of government is manifest in the area of refinery maintenance. They have always come out with programme of maintenance. The last one they came out with was so uptismistic. They gave us the impression that by June last year, everything would have been all right. Again, unfortunately, they did not do much. So, we want to believe that it is not as if they don’t have the solution to it or the idea as to how to solve the problem. But what happens is that, this same politicians who are the policy makers, they are the core investors who want to sell NNPC to themselves. So they want to perpetuate this situation. They want the situation to persist such that Nigerians will believe that the best way out is to sell NNPC and its subsidiaries. They are creating the ground for themselves to buy the corporations’  subsidiaries. It is not going to be good for Nigeria because these people don’t actually have the interest of Nigerians at heart. Most of them fraudulently acquired their wealth from public treasury and they want to use the same public wealth to buy public companies, to own them and turn public monopoly to private monopoly without actually attempting to really solve the problem of NNPC. We want to believe that if they really want to solve the problem of the refineries, they have the resources to turn around the refineries to make them work. Not by politicizing issues. Not by awarding contracts to companies that lack the technical and other resources to make the refineries work. If they are sincere, they will award the contract to competent contractors. The oil wells are flowing. There are buyers who we are exporting oil to. The money is coming. They divert too much of the money into politics. They should use part of the money to make the refineries work. Let the technocrats, let those who have the technical know how be involved in this  repairs not for politicians who know nothing about the technical management of refineries to take charge. That is what is killing the country. We don’t see the sincerity of the present government and the party in power to address the problems of this country. Rather than address problems, you see top party officials saying all sort of funny things about workers resistant to privatisation of public companies. Like the chairman of PDP, Chief Audu Ogbeh said recently. I think that is not a very responsible way of talking. They should make very visible and responsible efforts to solve this problem.

How does the face-off in the gulf impact and relate to the crisis in the country?

The crisis in the gulf has not affected  other countries the way it is affecting Nigeria. I said earlier that they are just using that opportunity to attempt to increase prices. Actually, we agree that crude prices went up and could still go up. There are two implications. One, the refineries in Europe and other parts of the world where we import refined products, they will definitely have their prices up because the crude, the raw material for refining the products has gone up. So, whatever we import is very likely that the prices would also go up. But another implication is that as a result of the crisis in the gulf region and the Venezuela problem, the crude we sell in this country has increase in quantity and the prices have also gone up. So a lot of money is accruing to the federal government. So, if so much is accruing to the government much more than what goes out or what will possibly go out as subsidy to get more fuel for Nigerians, then they don’t have reason for not been able to address this problem. They only lack the foresight to look at the situation as it was coming and have continency arrangement to checkmate the present suffering that Nigerians are passing through.

Do you think this time, it is politically wise to talk about pump price increase?

That is the blunder they are making. That is why they are coming up with a lot of unreasonable explanations and excuses like accusing sabotuers that are not existing. We believe that if there are saboturs at all, they are politicians in power. There are government  officials who are sabotaging Nigerians’ efforts, who are sabotaging the efforts of oil workers in Nigeria, who are diverting money that ought to be used for more important thing into political campaigns and all sort of things . I think it is unfortunate and we in NUPENG are not happy about it. I know every responsible Nigerian is not happy about such development. The government needs to be forthright on issues. As for this one, they are not serious. I think it is very clear to them now that it is a wrong time to talk of increasing pump prices. That would not solve the problem any, way. It will be suicide  mission to embark upon. If they do it, well only God knows what will happen but I know Nigerians would not be stupid enough to ask such people to come back, if they dare it this time. But for our union, as usual, you should know we will react. We will react in some new ways,  not necessarily the way we use to do it. But definitely, we will make it very difficult for them. I will believe it is not going to be possible.

Recently, your union sent a petition to the minister of employment, labour and productivity intimating him, about unfavourable industrial situation in the industry and your resolve to tackle it head on. What is the situation now?

Well, the situation still remain the same. It is only one of them that I think his done a little improvement. In Eleme Petro Chemical Company Limited (EPCL), Port Harcourt, we are made to understand that NNPC has retired, instead of reinstating workers that were sacked because of their union activities. That is a far cry from our expectation. But all the same,  because the people affected have decided to take it in good faith, we have decided also, to accept it like that. But in other areas like the contract workers in Shell, they are still facing the same problem. In fact, the situation is worsening. We are so surprised that the DGM of NAPIMS who is supposed to be a Nigerian and reason like other Nigerians in terms of the welfare of working in the industry has decided to turn the other way round. Rather than address an issue that was brought before him on the instruction of the Group Managing Director (GMD) of NNPC, we are surprised that he decided to take side with the multi-nationals. In fact, he made comments that are very unethical which we think are not good for the industry. But we are going to react. We are going to write the GMD of NNPC complaining about the activities and role of the DGM of NAPIMS and also to put the industry on an alert about our reaction to it. Definitely we are going to take on the industry. We are not going to allow Shell to just throw out that workers and change the contracting formular in the industry. There is a new development too. Just after the Shell issue, Chevron has also come up with something similar. Chevron is also pointing at the same DGM of NAPIMS. It appears he has some thing he is benefitting personally from that and as a result of that, he is all out to destroy the industry. But NUPENG will make sure we resist that. In fact, NUPENG and our petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), we are in concert, as a team in doing that. We are going to ensure that this neo-colonialism and re-colonialism is resisted vehemently. If it involves taking him as an individual or personalising it, we will do it with the man and we will take on every company in the industry that has decided to be anti-labour. On the case of Mike Adenuga and his management team  in National oil, they have cleverly converted the sacking of our vice president to early retirement which for now we have not got the details. But one thing is clear, the man is out of employment for now as we are talking.

We are definitely not happy about that. They are also some other people in Belbop for instance who also are staff of that same conglomerate belonging to Chief Adenuga. They have been put out of job for more than a year now because they are members of workers’ union. Management attitude towards union in that place is so discouraging and we are going to resist that culture. If it is allowed to continue, it will definitely create problem. The syndrome will spread round the industry just like the Shell contract is going round the entire industry now. The union is very set at this moment to resist all those anti-labour employers. We are particular about those ones we have mentioned. There are a lot of others. You have the owner of Lonestar and Deutag who is completely anti-labour. He uses community influence, he uses all sort of crude measures to fight the union. He goes to court at will. He takes union from upper court to lower court. If he is defeated in an upper court, he goes to a lower court which is actually not the right thing to do. He claims he has the money and the influence to do whatever he wants and has decided he would continue to give us problem.

In Delta presently, you can imagine a situation where a whole rig is manned by expatriates and contract workers.  No Nigerian staff. Every Nigerian there is a casual worker. That is against Nigerian labour law. Unfortunately,  because we do not have effective judicial system and modern labour laws in place and our politicians are not ready to protect Nigerian workers they do what ever they like. Some of these multi-nationals and core investors take laws into their hands. It is very bad. But we are not going to sit down and lament. We will take them head on.

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