700 NNPC staff to go, as stakeholders list conditions for efficiency

There are strong indications that at least 700 more staff of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) will be relieved of their posts by the Presidency and management, Business Day learnt at the weekend.

Sources within the NNPC told BusinessDay that going by the categories of those to be affected, over 700 workers would leave the service of the corporation at the end of the exercise.

The source further said that staff on salary grade M5, who are mostly senior managers, would likely be affected, adding that this would amount to a massive shakeup in the troubled corporation, which is being repositioned by the new management.

Stakeholders said at the weekend, that the only solution in the restructuring is effective monitoring of the operations, which should be based on transparent processes.

They said the original plan of the management was to pay-off such employees with at least five years of service to go, but when it realised that the computed severance package was huge , it scaled down those listed to employees with one and half years to retirement.

Our source said the bulk of those to be affected by the next round of lay-offs would be those of the subsidiaries and that the exercise would be conducted by the new group general managers.

The NNPC, in a statement signed by Ohi Alegbe, General Manager Group Public Affairs Division, said the action was in a bid to restructure the corporation to a lean, efficient and business-focused organisation and that management had approved and commenced the retirement exercise with those of 38 senior managers.

The statement explained that the downsizing of staff, which saw the exit of all senior managers billed to retire from now to December 2016, was designed to reduce cost.

“The exercise, apart from refocusing the corporation in the direction of a leaner and more efficient organisation, has enormous cost-saving benefits,’’ it said.

Meanwhile, industry stakeholders say that for the current restructuring of the NNPC to meet the yearnings of the Oil and Gas industry, it would require closing monitoring on the part of the leadership of the corporation.

They say through close monitoring, contract circles could be shortened and refineries made functional.

Oladiran Fawibe, chief executive of International Energy Services (IES) said a quality management system that would ensure that the aims and objectives of government are achieved must be put in place.

“Putting in place such a system would ensure that a process that would produce result is assured”, he said.

He further said there are still a lot to be reformed in the oil and gas industry because both the NNPC and the industry are still encountering some hurdles.

He observed that it was not yet clear how the international oil companies and the NNPC would relate going forward, adding investors would want to have an idea the direction the industry is going.