NUPENG boss says no to dialogue over strike

Rivers - The Rivers Chapter of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has rejected further dialogue to resolve issues hampering the oil and gas industry.

Mr Godwin Eruba, the Union’s zonal Chairman said in Port Harcourt on Friday that dialogue had failed the union in the past.

Eruba said that NUPENG was not ready for any mistake and would rather go on strike until its demands were met.

``Dialogue cannot work in this country; what are we even dialoguing when the people you are negotiating with cannot keep to their promises,” he said.

Eruba said that the nationwide strike, which started on July 26, was to call the attention of the government to the major issues militating against the oil and gas sector.

The chairman said that NUPENG embarked on strike over Federal Government’s delay to comply with turnaround maintenance of the oil refineries and payment of subsidy debt.

``The payment of fuel subsidy has been on hold by the government; we want the government to resume the payment of subsidy fund,” he said.

Eruba decried government’s plan to privatise the refineries, and said that the best way was to rehabilitate them before going on privatisation.

He also said that repairing major highways and rehabilitating the four refineries would assist government effort to transform the oil and gas industry.

``Our roads are death traps. We want the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency on our roads and refineries and to rehabilitate them,” Eruba said.