The Federal Government, yesterday allayed fears over the sacking of workers of the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory, PPPRA, stating that workers of both agencies would be assimilated into the new petroleum industry regulator to be set up by the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill, PIGB.
Speaking at a round table on understanding the PIGB, organised by the Nigeria Natural Resource Charter, NNRC and the Media Initiative on Transparency in the Extractive Industry, MITEI, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu, however, insisted that DPR and the PPPRA would be scrapped and would be merged into the Petroleum Regulatory Commission, PRC, as stipulated by the Bill.
Kachikwu, who was represented by his Senior Technical Adviser on Policy and Regulation, Mr. Adegbite Adeniji, also stated that it would not be business as usual as key performance indicators, KPI, would be set for the Board, management and other employees, adding that any official found wanting in the discharge of his or her duties would be sanctioned and shown the exit.
He maintained that the scrapping of the DPR and the PPPRA, apart from ensuring that no one is sacked, would provide an opportunity for new persons to be employed into the new entity to be set up, especially as new ideas are sought to fill in the gaps that might exist in the company.
He said, “Where they are gaps in the manpower in there, it provides an opportunity for people to be appointed from outside, because again, you want to put in new ideas, fresh legs in the whole process. In that process, you preserve the jobs, and you also attract a pathway for the employment of other skills from outside to help energise the new system you are trying to build.”