The call was made in a communiqué by workers named PENGASSAN Producers Forum (PF), a forum comprising mainly of workers in the upstream sub-sector and Producers Forum of PENGASSAN Committee on Industry Issues.
The workers’ position followed similar demands by their umbrella body, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), for the president to declare a state of emergency in the oil and gas industry and convene a Stakeholders’ Forum to holistically address the myriad of problems plaguing the sector.
The PENGASSAN Producers Forum said it arrived at the decisions after a committee it set up recently to look holistically at the issues affecting the sub-sector.
“We call on the president to unveil his plans for the industry within the first 100 days of his administration, and as demanded by PENGASSAN, declare a state of emergency in the oil and gas industry”, the communique read.
Part of the problems the committee identified was that government owed joint venture companies billions of dollars in cash call arrears, forcing these companies to cut costs by retrenching Nigerian workers.
It urged government to among others, detach itself totally from operations in the sector and raise revenue from taxation, as a means to clear the cash call arrears.
The forum also called on the president to re-present a reworked Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) to the 8th Assembly for accelerated passage.
“We suggest that the omnibus and massive bill be broken up into manageable chunks to allow needed reforms to commence while the more controversial issues can be further debated to agreeable points before passage”, it also said.
The Forum advised government to declare war against oil thieves and pipeline vandals as well as stop all pipeline contracts to groups without security and intelligence know-how.
