News: NNPC Retires Over 1000 Members of Staff

NNPC - Over 1000 workers of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) will leave service any moment from now, new reports reveal.


According to Daily Trust, over 1000 members of staff of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) would be relieved of their duties very soon. This is due to the ongoing restructuring process at the NNPC.

This affects over 200 middle level officers, 9 heads of the corporation’s subsidiaries, several top management staff and 800 others on the basis of the mandatory retirement age of 60 years or 35 years in service in the next one and a half years.

A source revealed the new NNPC boss, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has instructed all staff retiring by 31st December 2016 to leave with immediate effect as a result of the downsizing. The NNPC currently boasts of 9,500 workers according to a January report.

‘It’s A to zero restructuring. I’ve done the first three layers which is going from the Group Executive Directors to Group General Managers and General Managers. You’re going to have a lot more now. The NNPC isn’t public service. It’s a corporation and we run like a company generating money for the people of Nigeria. So, the whole concept of anything goes should stop,” Kachikwu said.

The ongoing exercise has been heavily criticised by the NNPC workers for not following constitutional procedures and also being used as an instrument of victimisation of workers.

"The on-going exercise portends a great danger in the Oil and Gas Sector, if workers are meant to bear the brunt of Government current action where the fight on corruption is now used as an act of vindictiveness against workers.” a worker said.

Meanwhile, the management has scheduled a meeting with the oil unions tomorrow as part of the efforts to carry them along.

The Management further said the reforms were free from ethnicity or any agenda but mainly to enshrine professionalism in the system in a statement issued recently.

Source: Tori.ng