PH Refinery Privatisation: workers strike, whose interest is it ?

The decision of government to privatise the Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries pitched the government against labour leaders who rose up in their usual way to oppose the decision. This, last week led Nigeria into losses in revenue of 3 million barrels of crude per day; in sales of 30 millions litres of imported Petrol and immense suffering to nation in terms of electricity outages and annoying fuel queues as a result of oil workers who had to go on strike protesting government actions for fear of the effects on their welfare.

The striking workers were members of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and their senior counterpart, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) NNPC branch.

The strike led to the closure of all Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation offices all over the country, with that of its affiliates, including the strategic National Gas Company NGC, which shut gas supply to Gas Thermal Stations that supply the bulk of Nigerian electricity.
The 26 NNPC depots across the country as well as all NNPC mega stations were closed.

Also the lifting of Nigerian crude oil was stalled by the strike, as well as the oil-receiving terminal at Mosimi, in Lagos. The unions are not on strike because the refineries were sold to Bluestar Oil Services Limited Consortium, owned by Aliko Dangote’s Equity Energy Resources; Femi Otedola’s Zenon Oil and Transnational Corporation for $561m but the non compliance by government functionaries to agreement reached with workers to be affected by the sale. They were protesting to protect their interest.

From all findings, the strike action was clearly avertable had government kept to a simple and reasonable agreement it had reached with the two unions, signed in black and white and made available to the Press penultimate week.

Even when government had been notified a week about the intention of the two unions on an impending strike, government took no action, maintaining an aloof stand. Curiously, on the second day of the strike, the Minister of Energy Dr. Edmund Daukoru came out of a meeting with leaders of the two unions and informed the Press, that he had told the two unions, that government cannot be intimidated into talks through strike.

“We will not discus under duress”, he had said. “We will only discuss after they have convinced their members to go back to work”, he stated.
Of course they were piqued by such display of arrogance and lack of feeling for both the suffering masses and the very contentious and legitimate worry of the striking NNPC workers.

The genesis of the problem was when government, after several attempts to sell the PH refinery and three others failed, came to a rushed conclusion that it was finally selling the refineries.
Officials of the two unions then met the leadership of the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) over the issue.

In a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the Mrs. Irene Chigbue, the Director General of BPE with officials of the two Unions on May 9, 2007, it was agreed among others, that the BPE should give the Unions reasonable time (three weeks) to carry out due diligence on the companies buying the refineries, and that all issues concerning the severance packages of the estimated 4,000 workers to be affected by the sales must be concluded before the sale.

In the MoU, it was also agreed that workers would be allowed the bidding companies access to the refineries to carry out their due diligence.
But none of that happened. About a week later, the financial bid of the refineries where opened Live! On TV. This clearly showed that the BPE had reneged on its agreement with the workers.

The bidding companies also never seemed to bother about going into the refineries to make their checks. They seemed to be in a hurry to buy no matter the condition of the “goods”

The BPE that evening, sold 51 per cent equity in the Port Harcourt Refinery to Bluestar Oil Services Limited Consortium, owned by Aliko Dangote’s Equity Energy Resources; Femi Otedola’s Zenon Oil and Transnational Corporation for $561m.

The sole bidder for Kaduna Refinery, China National Petroleum Corporation failed to match the reserve price after offering $102m. In a press conference that evening the leaders of the two unions expressed their grievances and warned about a total strike that will paralysed key oil and gas services manned by their members in protest of the breach of agreement.

The two unions gave government one week to conclude negotiation with them, if not, they had warned, the country should brave up for hard times to come.
The Group Chairman PENGASSAN, NNPC, Mr. John Elibe, in what sounded prophetic, said that President Olusegun Obasanjo might just be handing over big troubles to the new government, if the issues are not well tackled before May 29, 2007.

In other words, while Mr. Obasanjo had sold key downstream investment in the oil sector, Mr. Ya’adua will be the one to carry the burden that comes with the aftermath.

“Our unions were not opposed to privatisation”, he said. “We only resented the manner that BPE sold PHCR without the necessary due diligence”, he said.
“It was in the same manner it sold out our monumental investment in Stallion House without our consent”, the union leader said.

“Our workers will not allow they new owners access to the refinery unless the fate of the over four thousand workers to go are known and accepted by the unions. On his part, the Group Chairman, NUPENG, NNPC chapter, Mr. Williams Ibiba Inko said “We are going to protest this sale, by ordering our members to down tools by Thursday (May 24, 2007), should we not reach an agreement before then”.

He said the sale of Stallion House, which is owned 49 per cent by NNPC staff, has led to a loss of N220 million in revenue to their Pension Scheme, a situation which he says is already a big burden to them. “ They should value our pension and look at its prospects with regard to retiring more people into the pension fund. Right now we have about 8,000 people out there and 9,000 people in the system sustaining them. If you shot out about 4,000 after completing the process, fewer persons would be contributing. Ultimately, it means the pension scheme can longer hold.

“We may land in the same state of Railways workers, where the pensions cannot be sustained. Foreseeing that, we want government and our members to agree on what government will give us as palliatives.” he said, “if not so, Nigerians should brace up for the struggle”.

With their declaration and proposal made to government in the open, it has hard to put their action as unreasonable given the fact that even after government had snub them for a week, it came out speaking tough that it cannot be cowed into negotiation through strike.

But even as Vanguard spoke to the two union leaders before press time, both were hopeful that the situation will be brought to normalcy, as they hinted about government offering their members, “what we are yet to clearly understand”, what ever that means.

And that is the kind of lack of respect and concern for the collective well-being of Nigerian that this outgoing government has persistently shown. It could be by way of arbitrarily increment in the prices of petroleum products, or the controversial sales of oil blocks. But this unusual speedy sale of the two refineries among 32 other government investments on the last day that the National Council of Privatisation was holding its last meeting, will certainly lead both the buyers, the sellers and the Nigerian people into more squabbles, more troubles, more loses. How ever one looks at it, the PBE has sold and bought trouble at the same time
The question then is whose cause are the unions fighting, nation or self interest?

(C)Luka Binniyat --Vanguard