Youths from Omoku in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers State have issued a warning to the Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC) against proposed plan to sack over 165 indigenous workers in the company’s extra-ordinary surveillance scheme.
The youth also asked the company to stop the move to scrap the ongoing surveillance scheme, warning that the attempt might truncate the peace being enjoyed in Omoku and its environs.
According to a statement by the Coordinator-General, Omoku Youth Federation, Ekeuku Pureheart and secretary-general, Ordu Chukwumela Emmanuel in Port Harcourt, the group regretted that a new proposal from the company stipulated that all personnel in the surveillance job would be sacked for a new recruitment.
It said that the proposal mentioned each of the communities was expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with NAOC in which a new template of recruiting eight persons per kilometre of pipeline to be paid N40,000 monthly and one oil and gas well to be considered as one kilometre.
Omoku youths, in the statement, said it was not against the proposal for a new surveillance job title but the quota for Omoku community must correspond with the established number of pipeline kilometres in the area.
The statement read in parts: “That we are not against Agip proposed new scheme of surveillance job title quick response team.
“That the quota/number of slots to be given to the communities of Omoku must correspond correctly to the established template of number of persons per kilometre of pipeline and one oil/gas well taken as one kilometre.
“That there must be thorough and proper analysis of the mileage in kilometre of each of the communities of Omoku, so as to properly and correctly determine the actual number of slots due for our people. That has stated by NAOC, the slots to Omoku shall be released on the basis of community by community in accordance with the mileage of kilometres and oil/gas well available in particular community.”
They urged NAOC to enter into the MoU with the communities directly as was done in other communities of the council, adding that the youth were against N40,000 salary for the workers.
“OCYLF also rejects in its entirety the move to sack over 165 persons already in the surveillance job, urging the firm to instead transfer them to the real department they were originally employed,” the group restated.
The group recalled that 165 personnel in the NAOC extra ordinary surveillance scheme were recruited as a result of an agreement between Omoku communities and NAOC in 2014, but that the agreement which was supposed to be for 370 personnel (on the basis of five-persons per each subsidiary company in OB/OB gas plant) were supposed to be field workers.
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