Settle marketers’ debts to avert mass sack, PENGASSAN urges FG

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has called on the federal government to settle all debts allegedly owed oil marketers.

The senior staff trade union made the call against the backdrop of the threat by the marketers to embark on massive retrenchment of their employees if the government refused to settle the over N720 billion subsidy arrears.

The debts, according to the marketers, was the outstanding subsidy owed on the importation of petroleum products, accrued interest on loans from banks and exchange rate differential, which made them to halt importation of refined petroleum products leaving only the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) doing the business.

PENGASSAN said if the government is genuinely interested in the growth of the downstream sector and want to attract more investments in the sector, which is almost moribund, then it should pay the debts owed the marketers.

In a statement signed by the National Public Relations Officer (PRO) of PENGASSAN, Comrade Fortune Obi, the union said that government should try as much as possible to verify the authenticity of the claims by the oil marketers and ensure quick settlement of the genuine debts.

“A situation where the workers in the industry bear the inability of the government to honour its obligations as part of the importation deal will be unfair and unacceptable to our Association. This is against the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration major policy of job creation.”

He noted that in the last five years, workforce in the downstream sector, especially the marketing sub sector had depleted by over 70 per cent, adding, “most of them were thrown to the already over-bloated labour market.”