The Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) has accused the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and other unions in the petroleum sector of trying to blackmail government over the IPPIS platform directive because they don’t want to migrate to it as directed by the president.
The OAGF was reacting to threats by PENGASSAN and others to down tools from today if the federal government failed to pay their salaries.
PENGASSAN had in a letter dated June 8, 2020 to the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, protested government’s failure to pay their salaries.
Our correspondent gathered the executives of PENGASSAN at the end of their meeting had threatened to withdraw its members’ services nationwide if FG refuses to address their concerns over IPPIS.
They claim the IPPIS is fraught with technical issues thus it shouldn’t be implemented by fiat.
But reacting to the unions’ threat, the Director, Information, Press and Public Relations, OAGF Mr. Henshaw Ogubike, told our correspondent that “when every union threatens to go on strike to blackmail government and blatantly refuses to key in to government policy in order to force their own will on the government, it means Nigerians need to ask questions as to what are they afraid of.”
According to him; “the excuse of IPPIS is fraught with issues is lame as nobody has been denied his legitimate earnings on the platform.
“NEITI has been on IPPIS platform ever since with little or no challenges as being exaggerated by PENGASSAN.”
“While we acknowledged that there is no system that is perfect 100% percent without little or no challenges at initial stage of enrolment.
“This can be avoided and overcome seamlessly when the agencies cooperated with the IPPIS,” he said.
“We wish to remind the public that IPPIS have been able to save government over N361 billion from 2017 to 2019,” he claimed.
