All staff of defunct PPPRA, DPR, PEF will be retained — Minister

The Federal Government is to retain the about 1,500 employees of the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources, Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency and Petroleum Equalisation Fund.

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, disclosed this on Wednesday during meetings with employees of the affected organisations in Abuja.

Mr Sylva, who announced that he had stepped down as the chairman, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, supervised the handing over ceremonies at the agencies.

Recall that the minister had announced the scrapping of the aforementioned agencies on Monday during the inauguration of the boards of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority and the Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission in Abuja.

With the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act, the NPRA and NURC had taken over the functions of the DPR, PPPRA and PEF, the minister further explained.

He had said: “The law states that all the assets and even the staff of the DPR are to be invested on the commission and also in the authority. So that means the DPR doesn’t exist anymore.

“And, of course, the law specifically repeals the DPR Act, the Petroleum Inspectorate Act, the Petroleum Equalisation Fund Act and the PPPRA Act. The law specifically repeals them. It is very clear that those agencies do not exist anymore.

“The law also provides for the staff and the jobs in those agencies to be protected. But I’m sure that that [law] doesn’t cover, unfortunately, the chief executives, who were on political appointments.”