The Dangote Petroleum Refinery has stopped the monthly salaries of the engineers sacked in September during its face-off with the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria.

In a bid to address this, PENGASSAN said it is engaging the Dangote Group to resolve the matter amicably instead of resorting to another industrial action.

Findings by The PUNCH revealed that the salaries were halted following the refusal of many of the engineers to accept their redeployment to Zamfara, Borno, Benue, and Sokoto states, among others.

Some of the workers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, had earlier said individuals were sent to a coal mine in Benue, concrete road construction sites in Borno and Ebonyi states, as well as rice plants in Kebbi, Niger, Sokoto, and Zamfara.

While a few workers were said to have accepted the redeployment, many rejected it, relying on assurances from PENGASSAN that the crisis would be resolved through dialogue.

It was learnt that the Dangote Group issued a warning signal in October by slashing the wages of the affected workers before withholding their November salaries completely.

A senior official of the Dangote Group confirmed to our correspondent that the company would no longer continue paying those who rejected the redeployment offers.

While the affected workers described the non-payment of their salaries as “victimisation”, the official, who did not want his name in print due to the lack of authorisation to speak on the matter, wondered why the company should keep paying individuals who had refused the alternative placements offered.

“Those whose services were terminated were given an opportunity to work in our other projects, such as rice mills, concrete road construction, and coal mines.

All those who accepted have started working.

“If a newspaper terminates the services of an employee, and if it even goes out of its way to provide alternative employment, but the employee is not interested in availing the alternative employment, will it keep paying his/her salary?” the official said.

Recall that PENGASSAN had shut down oil and gas facilities in September over allegations that 800 refinery workers were fired for volunteering to be members of the union. However, the Dangote refinery said it only sacked a few workers who were sabotaging the facility, describing the exercise as a reorganisation.

The shutdown caused nationwide losses in oil and gas production and contributed to a drop in power generation until the Federal Government intervened and directed the redeployment of the affected workers.

In October, the sacked engineers were invited to pick up their letters at the Ikeja office of the Dangote Group. One of the letters sighted by our correspondent was titled ’Offer of Trainee Engagement’ and carried the letterhead of Dangote Projects Limited.

It reads partly: “Based on your performance at the assessment and subsequent interviews held with you, we are pleased to engage you as Engineer Trainee (Mechanical Engineering) for the coal project we are executing at Okpokwu, Benue State. This engagement shall be subject to the following conditions: You will report to your work location within 14 days upon receipt of this letter.

“You will undergo classroom training and hands-on training in the construction, commissioning, and operation of our Coal Project at Okpokwu, Benue State. Your training will be for a period of two years, and it will be reviewed periodically. You will be required to submit reports on your learning and progress. The objective of the training is to impart to you skills and to enable you to take up a position of responsibility in the organisation.”

Many of the engineers expressed concerns about the posting, especially to places perceived to be security hot spots. “The issue with the re-employment is that, firstly, there’s no address to report to on that letter. No office to report to in the states we were posted to. Secondly, those are security hot zones.

“Thirdly, in the letter, it is stated that if you don’t report within 14 days, your employment will be terminated, but no office location was given, and they don’t exist when we checked on Google Maps. So, if we accept the letters, we are basically terminating our employment by ourselves because there’s no office in those states to report to. PENGASSAN has basically told us not to accept the letters. We should let them continue with their talks,” they told The PUNCH.

Speaking during a briefing last week, the PENGASSAN President, Festus Osifo, said the union was still engaging the Dangote refinery to have the issues resolved.

Osifo said, “Since our last national industrial action, we have been engaging them in a lot of conversations, but the issues are not fully resolved. There are still a lot of pending issues. The NEC decided that, yes, let us still continue that process by pushing those issues by engaging in a dialogue to resolve the issues, and by also engaging all our social partners and stakeholders to get the issues resolved. And we hope and pray that these issues will be resolved at the table.

“These issues should be resolved in mere jaw-jaw so that we will not go back to Egypt. But as PENGASSAN, you know, we don’t shy away from doing what is right. But our preference is to get the subject resolved over the negotiation table.”

A senior management officer told our correspondent on Sunday that PENGASSAN had the right to make its requests, but the company also had the liberty to make decisions that suited its business.

“They (PENGASSAN) have their privilege to ask. We can’t deny the opportunity to anyone to ask anything they wish. But we, too, have the privilege to state what we want,” the official said.

Some of the engineers lamented the turn of events. They disclosed that there was “an agreement that they would send us to oil and gas companies owned by Dangote.”

According to them, it was initially agreed that their salaries would be paid until the issue was resolved.

“But we noticed a reduction in our October salaries. We were not paid for November when others have been paid. That’s clear victimisation. It was agreed that Dangote would keep paying us until the matter is resolved, but it seems they have breached the agreement already,” they said.

As the stalemate lingers, the affected engineers said they are now caught between losing their livelihoods and accepting deployments they consider unsafe and irregular, while PENGASSAN continues to push for a negotiated settlement to prevent another nationwide shutdown.

With both sides holding firmly to their positions, the resolution of the dispute now hangs on the outcome of ongoing engagements between the union and the Dangote Group.