Oil workers under the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), warned the Federal Government to desist from its plans to scrap the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Petroleum Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) other agencies in the oil and gas industry without proper consultation with the unions therein.

President of the union,Comrade Igwe Achese,who conveyed the warning in a statement in Lagos,implored the National Assembly not to allow the scrapping of the agencies as they were set up by law and cannot be scrapped overnight by government fiat.

He said another attempt by the government to reduce the workforce in the sector and will be resisted by his union, adding that the current back door policy to retrench workers in the Federal Government corporations will not augur well for the industrial peace and harmony in the oil and gas sector under the guise of a National Oil Policy.

According to him, what is necessary now is to strengthen the companies by granting them autonomy and not to be controlled by red-tapism in government.
He further advised the Federal Government to put pressure on the National Assembly to pass the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) which will make the oil and gas industry much more efficient, transparent and accountable and in the long run bring the needed investments in the sector.

“NUPENG warns that it will not tolerate what the Federal Government is presently doing in aviation agencies like NAMA, FAAN, NIMET, where workers are being sacked in the name of restructuring’’, he added.