Workers of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) yesterday embarked on an indefinite strike over their managements’ refusal to fund the pension system as stipulated in the PENCOM Act.
The workers, under the aegis of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), had Friday staged a protest to the NNPC Group Managing Director office and presented a memo on their decision to down tool.
They also listed problems related to inadequate supply of crude to the country’s four refineries as well as failure to carry out major overhaul of the refineries.
One of the union leaders, who pleaded for anonymity, said with the strike, crude oil exports would be affected, gas supply to the power generation companies would be shut down and all activities at the jetties as well as depots would be suspended. The meeting summoned yesterday by the NNPC management with the unions ended deadlocked.
At the NNPC Towers in Abuja yesterday, our reporter gathered that official activities were hindered as some of the workers left before 1.00pm.
In Lagos, the workers’ leadership under the auspices of PENGASSAN and NUPENG held a closed door meeting with the NNPC management on the issue.
Meanwhile, queues of vehicles were yesterday witnessed at some filling stations in Abuja as the news of the strike broke.
The workers had last Friday issued a three-day ultimatum to management. The deadline according to Babatunde Oke, PENGASSAN media officer, expired yesterday morning.
Oke said all the workers at the NNPC branches nationwide had been mandated to shun their offices from today to press home their demand.
The National Pension Commission (PENCOM) had last week revoked the licence granted to the NNPC Pension Fund over failure to meet its requirements.
A letter dated September 8, 2014, addressed to the Group Managing Director NNPC, and signed by the Ag. Director General, PENCOM Chinelo Anohu-Amazu put the deficit in the scheme by NNPC at N133.56billion (inclusive of the N182.26bn receivable from NNPC) as of December 31, 2012.
The PENCOM is concerned that eight years after the grant of approval to continue with the existing scheme, the NNPC has failed to honour its promises to fund the deficit despite several reminders..

Source: http://dailytrust.com.ng/daily/news/34509-nnpc-dpr-workers-go-on-strike

Well yes.

NNPC started much earlier. DPR started by 3 pm yesterday. The arm of PENGASSAN in DPR held a meeting yesterday morning and by 3pm decided to join the strike.

It has to do with the pension management and a percieved threat of interference by the Federal Government (through PENCOM) with the NNPC/DPR closed pension scheme.

PENCOM insists that the NNPC/DPR Pension scheme has not met the requirements to operate as a closed pension scheme,hence control should be transfered to PENCOM. PENCOM states that NNPC is currently running over 130 Billion Naira Deficit and such a pension scheme cannot be sustainable.

Opinions reveal fears that the money will be vulberable with PENCOM and might be looted,while their pensioners might begin to face the same challenges other pensioners face and suffer through in Nigeria. While some argue that what threat is there to a deficit account which is highly underfunded? Insisting that if attempts are not made now to salvage the situation the scheme might collapse in the near future.

Reason for the said deficit is yet unknown as the contributory pension scheme is supposed to see funding from both the employee and employer on a monthly basis with the funds managed by a pension fund administrator and kept by a custodian(bank).

dabriggs: Well yes.

NNPC started much earlier. DPR started by 3 pm yesterday. The arm of PENGASSAN in DPR held a meeting yesterday morning and by 3pm decided to join the strike.

It has to do with the pension management and a percieved threat of interference by the Federal Government (through PENCOM) with the NNPC/DPR closed pension scheme.

PENCOM insists that the NNPC/DPR Pension scheme has not met the requirements to operate as a closed pension scheme,hence control should be transfered to PENCOM. PENCOM states that NNPC is currently running over 130 Billion Naira Deficit and such a pension scheme cannot be sustainable.

Opinion from staff reveals fears that the money will be vulberable with PENCOM and migh be looted,while their pensioners might begin to face the same challenges other pensioners face and suffer through in Nigeria.

There is a need to manage our pension well o.Me I no fit shout.

bros, u be nnpc staff?

Nope..I am not.

Into oil and gas business..ha ha ha. Anyway offices were closed around 3pm.