Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, on Sunday pleaded with the Federal Government to establish Pipeline Protection Agency, PPA that will be saddled with the protection of pipelines traversing the nooks and crannies of the country.
This came as the union lauded the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, for the re-opening of Mosimi Depot, praising efforts of the Group Managing Director of the Corporation, Dr. Maikanti Baru, for making it possible after the depot had been closed down for over a year now.
NUPENG in a statement by its President, Comrade Igwe Achese, said the opening of the Mosimi depot would make distribution of petroleum products to the South-west easy and put less pressure on petroleum tankers that throng the Lagos axis to load.
NUPENG called on NNPC to also re-open the system B line so that petroleum products could be dispensed through it.
According to the statement: “NUPENG wants the NNPC to also go further to reactivate and re-open the other moribund depots scattered all over the county.
We want to also reiterate our earlier call for the establishment of Pipeline Protection Agency, PPA, that will be saddled with the protection of pipelines traversing the nooks and crannies of the country. The Agency should be well funded and equipped with modern gadgets like alarms, sensors and helicopters gun-ships with night vision.”
“NUPENG also commends the NNPC Management under Dr. Maikanti Baru for the increase in refining capacity of the four nation’s refineries by 29%.
”The union praises the new refinery model of each refinery purchasing crude oil at export parity price, processes and sells the corresponding products on its own account. The union reiterates the need for the refineries to work optimally so that the dependence on foreign import of petroleum products will be reduced to the barest minimum.”
It would be recalled that suggestions like this had been made by Major General Tajudeen Olanrewaju as Chairman of the Presidential Review Committee on Major General Emmanuel Abisoye Panel Report on NNPC Reforms as far back as 1995.
With NUPENG coming at this time with this depend for a PPA, the government, some of our respondents have said, need to revisit that review report by inviting the main suggesting personality to provide a guide on how it could effectively be done.
