We’re not going on strike for oil marketers but for workers – NUPENG

The president of  the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Achese Igwe has argued that the industrial action threatened by the union is not for the payment of oil subsidies to fraudulent oil marketers but to secure the payment of  salaries to workers in the sector.
Mr. Igwe was on Channels Television’s breakfast show, Sunrise Daily, to explain the reasons for the impending strike which has already grounded the Federal Capital Territory, leaving the residents to resort to black market for fuel.
The Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, recently alleged that the oil workers union was working in connivance with the oil marketers to blackmail the federal government over the payment of fuel subsidy.
The union leader however accused the federal government of non-compliance to earlier agreements with the union which included agreement on subsidy payments, repair of bad roads across the country plied by oil distributing trucks and refinery maintenance.
According to Mr Igwe, some of the workers in the sector are currently being owed salaries for over three months.
Reacting to the planned strike by NUPENG, the spokesman for the Civil Liberty Organsation, Abah Ejembi speaking from Channels Television’s Abuja studio, urged the union not to put the lives of over 160 million Nigerians at risk with the struggle for their union members,  that number about 15,000 by compelling the federal government to pay the subsidy claims that are shrouded in fraud.
Mr. Abah Ejembi claimed that NUPENG is fighting the battle for their ‘bosses’-the oil marketers who are entangled in allegations of fraudulent claims in the management of the nation’s fuel subsidy regime with the Ministry of Finance.