Petrol scarcity looms as Tanker drivers threaten strike – Rembers of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) branch of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers of Nigeria (NUPENG) have threatened to withdraw their services in the next two weeks if their demands are not met.
The tanker drivers, at the end of their Executive Council meeting, held in Ibadan yesterday warned that should their employer’s body, Nigeria Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), failed to negotiate the renewal of the Collective Bargaining Agreement for new working conditions for the petrol tanker drivers, they would withdraw their services nationwide.
In a communique signed by its Chairman Salmon Akanni Oladiti, the union said: “The branch will no longer be able to guarantee the continued service of our members in the petroleum products distribution across the country if a new condition of service for PTDs is not provided for in the next fourteen days with effect from today.”
The PTD members of NUPENG said the expiring collective bargain agreement had been in operation for the past six years even when the country has been experiencing a spiral inflationary trend that is further complicated by COVID-19 pandemic.
“The council in session expressed deep worries that PTDs have been going through harrowing financial situations even while rendering selfless national services, to ensure delivery of petrol products to homes and factories in every nook and cranny of this country, day and nights, in good and bad weather and on highly deplorable highways,” the communique read.
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The chairman said the union has resolved to direct its members to withdraw their services if the installation of safety valve is not made mandatory in petroleum trucks from May 1 2021, because members of the union are usually the first casualties in any fire incidents involving petroleum trucks.
Oladiti said the branch executive council discussed with ‘sadness, pains, and deep worries’ the increasing rate of fire incidence involving petroleum trucks with massive destruction of lives and properties of the members and public.
He said: “The Council in session noted with deep concerns the government’s dilly-dallying attitude towards the enforcement of the compulsory installation of safety valves in petrol trucks to protect the inflammable contents of these trucks from spilling over in a situation of road mishaps.
“The council in session expressed disappointment over the failure of the Federal Government to live up to its various commitments with various stakeholders in several meetings called by the government on the same matter.”
He said insensitive government officials and shady businessmen will no longer be allowed to keep destroying the lives of the union’s members and the innocent general public, stressing that these fire accidents are becoming too many but avoidable.
“It is in the well-informed opinion of the council in session that these safety valves if installed will go a long way in reducing the rate of fire accidents involving petroleum trucks and therefore save precious lives and properties,” he said.
He however said the union is not unmindful of the pains and discomforts its decisions and intending actions will have on the general public, but stated that these are hard and difficult decisions the union must take for the sake of its members and even the general public.