The Petroleum and
Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) said on
Wednesday it would go ahead with its planned nationwide strike from
Thursday.
The group's
spokesperson, Emmanuel Ojugbana, said chairmen and secretaries in its
four zones and branches have concluded plans to ensure a complete
shutdown of the country's oil and gas industry operations and
activities.
On Monday,
PENGASSAN had directed its zonal leaders to sensitize members about the
planned strike over "unresolved issues" affecting the smooth operation
of the oil and gas industry.
Mr. Ojugbana said
since the directive, its members have been meeting to fine-tune
strategies towards the strike, with its key officers holding their final
meeting on Wednesday.
Furttermore, Petroleum Club, an
association of chief executive officers of oil and gas companies, both
indigenous and foreign, has raised alarm that the nation's economy is
seriously under threat, following the National Assembly's determined
efforts to amend the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Act.
The association,
which described the intended legislative action as an adventure in the
wrong direction, warned that the proposed amendment would have far
reaching negative consequences not only for the Liquefied Natural Gas
(LNG) business, but also for the entire petroleum industry in the
country.
These oil and gas
firms' chief executive officers pointed out that if the proposed
amendment of NLNG Act sailed through, more oil companies and
international lenders would no longer view Nigeria as a country in which
they could have confidence in the fiscal and commercial terms granted
to investors.
The Chairman of the
Senate Committee on Niger Delta, Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, who demanded
for the amendment of NLNG Act, had premised his reason on the gas
company's refusal to pay dues to the Niger Delta Development Commission
(NDDC) since the last 16 years.
Nwaoboshi said: "It
is not whether that they contributed certain percentage. The point is
that they had refused to obey the law since year 2000. We want to know
those who are contributing to the agency.
"We have asked the
Managing Director of the NLNG, Mr. Babs Omotowa, and he said that they
have not been contributing money to the NDDC. They showed us a Supreme
Court judgment, which described NLNG as a gas processing company and
that there is a Gas Act that came before that of NDDC Act.
"They argued that
the NDDC Act has not repealed the Gas Act. The NLNG claimed that the Gas
Act has given them tax holiday. We are lawmakers and we are going to
revisit the two Acts. We will go into the root of the matter. We don't
just make laws for the purpose of making it," he stressed.
The Minority Leader
of the House of Representatives, Honourable Leo Ogor, while arguing on
this same issue, hinged his reason on untold environmental and health
havoc wrecked on the people of the Niger Delta.
Ogor said: "The
only way we can solve this problem is to bring relevant amendments to
the Act because our people have suffered so much and I said that it is
very important that we appreciate the enormity of the danger present in
the region for us to act quickly and as a people, hold the NLNG
responsible for unnecessary gas flaring using this amendment.
"The amendment to
this Act is aimed at redressing the great injustice that the NLNG has
meted to the people of the Niger Delta region for almost 27 years now.
To partly or completely rejuvenate the environment, the NDDC
establishment Act, specifically section 14 (2)(b), stipulates that 3 per
cent of the total annual budget of any oil producing company operating
onshore and offshore in the Niger Delta area, including gas processing
companies like NLNG, shall pay the said percentage into the funds of the
Niger Delta Development Commission. WORLD NEWS CENTER
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