PENGASSAN President, Festus Osifo, stated this during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, on Wednesday

“The NMDPRA are the ones administering a bridging fund. At a particular time, they agreed with truck drivers that the bridging fund is going to be about N10 per litre depending on the destination you’re going to all over the country.

“As at when they agreed, the cost of diesel was about N250 so it was fashionable and the N10 was a bit, okay but today, the cost of diesel is over N700. It has tripled. So, the expectation from the tanker drivers is that since the cost has gone up, instead of paying me N10.40kobo as the case may be, you have to multiply it by three.

“At the end of the day, that is the first problem”.

Contrary to the belief that PMS is scarce, the PENGASSAN boss said that there’s at least 2 billion litres in stock.

“As at today, we have close to 2 billion litres of PMS, so the problem is not the stock,” he said, explaining that while the stock is available, most of the truck drivers are not willing to move these products “because of the previous problem I just enumerated”.

“One of the issues again is that today, NNPC is the sole importer of PMS, so they import PMS into the country, and this PMS is brought to the high sea, so they rent some smaller vessels to bunker the PMS and take to the various tank farms or depots. So, if it’s the NNPC depots and you are loading from the NNPC depots, you are going to pay abut N148 as the ex-depot price. But some of the PMS are also stored in private depots and those private depots don’t sell to the retailers for 148; they add some premium to it, at the end the of the day, they sell between 152, 155, 160 and 162.

“So, if they sell at that amount, it will now be difficult for the retailer to go and sell at the same amount.”

President of PENGASSAN, Felix Osifo, who made this known in a statement said the government was yet to address some of the association’s demands.

The parties had disagreed after the directive that the oil workers register for the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

Osifo disclosed that PENGASSAN maintained that Petroleum Training Institute and Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency, must be paid using the harmonized template of 2015.

He noted that this was already in use by the budget office, appropriated by the National Assembly and signed by President Muhammadu Buhari into law.

The labour leader said the union wants a high-powered committee, comprising Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers and PENGASSAN Presidents, to settle the outstanding issues surrounding the IPPIS platform.

“For the 22 months salary arrears, government agreed to pay 50 per cent and that the balance would be worked out after Federation Accounts Allocation Committee has met. PENGASSAN has agreed, but insisted that there should be a definite date for payment of the balance,’’ he said.

This development may result to scarcity of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, in coming days.

The order was issued in a letter, dated November 8, 2020, and signed by the General Secretary, PENGASSAN, Lumumba Okugbawa, which was also copied to the Central Working Committee members of the association.

According to Okugbawa, the strike was to kick against the failure of the government to make any concrete move as regards the differences between PENGASSAN and government on matters bordering on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, The Punch reports.

The workers had threatened to embark on a warning strike from Wednesday, June 24 to Friday, June 26, 2020, to protest the Federal Government’s attempt to forcefully enrol its members into the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

However, the planned strike has been stalled to give the federal government time to act.

In a statement to oil workers in the employ of the Federal Government, Secretary-General of PENGASSAN, Comrade Lumumba Okugbawa disclosed that the union are currently in talks with officials of the government and would provide updates after talks are concluded.

He said, “Refer to our letter dated June 17, 2020, on the above subject, which a copy was sent to you. The matter has been apprehended and discussions ongoing with the Honourable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources. The Secretariat will get back to you as events unfold.”