The Nigerian Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association has written to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu via the Chief of Staff’s office to request that the decision to divide the 4% cost collection from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission be reversed.
According to Nairametrics, the president was given till Wednesday, July 19 by PENGASSAN to change his mind or face strong opposition from the Union.
The statement said that the Commission employees would be doomed as a result of an earlier decision, sanctioned by the president, to split NUPRC funding for other uses because of huge accruals.
The Union claimed in a statement written by PENGASSAN that President Tinubu authorized and communicated a directive to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning through a memo with the reference SH/COS/24/B/178 dated July 7, 2023.
The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission was given the order to divide its 4% cost of collection into two categories:
2.5% of the first category go towards ordinary capital expenditures and NUPRC operations while the second category is allocated 1.5% for capital expenditure for upgrading crude oil and gas metering and transparency systems.
NUPRC staff members are dealing with a multitude of challenges, according to PENGASSAN, which will only get worse if the cost collection is split.
One of these problems is a serious debt crisis of over N13 billion, which makes it difficult for the company to satisfy its financial responsibilities, such as personnel salaries and operating costs.
Financial troubles have resulted from the NUPRC’s failure to pay pension deductions from staff advance allowances to their Pension Fund Administrators, which has an impact on retirement payments in the future.
The non-remittance of cooperative funding also affects staff members, increasing their financial burden.
The PENGASSAN statement also noted that continual power outages at zonal offices have an effect on productivity and operational effectiveness.
PENGASSAN further says that retirees have large delays in obtaining gratuities, creating financial difficulties during retirement and that staff employees are robbed of legitimate promotional arrears, resulting in dissatisfaction and discouragement.
The Commission, according to PENGASSAN, neglects to pay on-call staff allowances, failing to compensate workers for their availability outside of regular business hours.
The statement further claimed that contrary to what was mentioned in the document, the compensation of Commission workers should be benchmarked with that of the petroleum sector.
Furthermore, it was asserted that NUPRC employees are underpaid based on a cursory review of pay in the Nigerian petroleum sector for those with comparable duties and experience.
The claim that Commission employees receive “overly generous salaries and allowances” is therefore untrue.
PENGASSAN claimed that the document in question suggests that the Commission’s accruals will rise to N145 billion as a result of the unified exchange rates, given that most of the revenue collected is denominated in US Dollars.
Lastly, it claimed that the Commission for the Oil Producers Trade Section is to blame for the lack of transparency systems.
