Unemployment: NUPENG Charges FG On PPP

The National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has urged the Federal Government to strengthen Public Private Partnership scheme to create job opportunities for unemployed Nigerians.

The President of the Union, Comrade Igwe Achese stated this in a statement made available to The Tide.

Comrade Achses said the Public Private Partnership is capable of creating factories, cottage industries that will keep the restive unemployed youth busy.

The union’s boss said empowerment scheme should be launched and promoted by the oil multinationals and states government, stressing that it can be driven through the establishment of skills acquisition schemes for the youths.

The union leader decried the incessant force majeure been declared by oil majors especially Shell Petroleum Development Company and recently by Agip Oil Company in its oil fields in the Niger Delta due to illegal bunkering.

The Labour leader drew attention to the shutting down of Italian oil firm Agip Swamp area oil fields in Bayelsa which produces about 40,000 barrels of crude oil daily due to incessant wave of illegal bunkering and vandalisation of the pipelines.

The NUPENG statement said Agip Oil Company was losing about 7,000 barrels of its crusde production daily to oil thieves in Bayelsa State.

The union boss described  theft of the nation’s resources like crude oil as unpatriotic, criminal and further degrades the environment of the oil bearing communities.

The union calls for effective survelliance and use of the local to monitor the pipelines.

The union also condemned  what it described as the brazen and senseless killings of muocent Nigerians by suspected gunmen in some part of the North.

Comrade Achese called on the Federal Government to safeguard the lives and property of Nigerians irrespect  of their state of origin.