Feelers emerged on Wednesday that Visafone was winding
down operations and had sacked more than 83 per cent of its workers as part of
its acquisition by the MTN Nigeria.
Our correspondent gathered
that over 2,000 employees were disengaged with effect from January 5, 2016, and
were paid three months’ salaries as severance package.
The only categories of
employees said to be left were those in the personnel and transmission
departments.
One of the affected workers,
who spoke on condition of anonymity, told our correspondent that the sacking
came as a surprise to many of them.
“We learnt that the management
would downsize, but we were told that that would be later in 2016. It is,
however, surprising that they are sending majority of us away so early in the
year. Though they paid three months’ severance benefits, but should it be this
way?
“Some of us have put in five
to 10 years of our lives in keeping the business going, but see what we are
getting now. It is well.”
A senior management employee
at Visafone confirmed the sacking, but was quick to refer media enquiries to
MTN because he was not authorised to speak on the deal.
When contacted, MTN Nigeria
neither denied nor confirmed the deal, but said the management was already
working on a statement that would be made available to journalists later in the
day or today (Thursday).
As of the time of filing this
report, our correspondent had yet to obtain the statement.
Reliable sources stated that
the MTN would have completed the acquisition of Visafone, the only surviving
Code Division Multiple Access operator in the country, before the end of 2015,
but for the N1.04tn fine slammed on it by the Nigerian Communications
Commission.
Our correspondent gathered
that the challenges in the nation’s economy had also frustrated plans by the
MTN to absorb at least 50 per cent of the sacked Visafone workers and because
“it wants to reduce its exposure in Nigeria.”
Source: The
Punch
0 comments:
Post a Comment