Posted by By Tony Edike on
LOKOJA - MORE than 7,020 of the 10,391 staff of NITEL Plc have been pencilled down for sack by Transcorp, the new management of the company.....
LOKOJA - MORE than 7,020 of the 10,391 staff of NITEL Plc have been pencilled down for sack by Transcorp, the new management of the company.
The Acting National President of the National Union of Postal and Telecommunications Employees (NUPTE), Mr. Sunday Alhassanm, said in Lokoja during the weekend that Transcorp has decided to retain 3,329 of the workers.
He said that the 3,329 staff were mainly technical personnel, explaining that at a meeting of the union with BPE officials in the office of the Minister for Labour, last week, in Abuja, it was agreed that five years cumulative salary be paid to the affected staff.
Alhassan explained that the cumulative five years salary was to serve as exit settlement.
He further said that it was also agreed that no staff should be served with sack letter if there was no money to effect immediate payment of his or her entitlements.
'It was equally agreed that money for the settlement of backlog of salary arrears owed the workers would be made available this week," the union leader added.
Alhassan, however, frowned at the arrangement, on the ground that some staff would be short-changed. He explained that the all workers should rather be sacked and be paid their entitlements 'and let the management give fresh appointment to those it wants to retain".
On the present management of the company, the acting national president said there was no difference between Pentascope and Transcorp.
'We have no proof of their technical competence and have not heard where they operated and had a success story. 'If they are competent to handle the company well, they should come with their own technical expertise, why are they trying to retain our technicians?" he queried.
Alhassan attributed the problems of NITEL to 'general inefficiency inherent in civil service mentality among staff and management".
He expressed the hope that there would be no replication of such scenario.