The Nigerian system is notorious for its poor treatment of pensioners and disengaged workers. The government is notorious on reneging on agreements it reaches with the working people or even with Labour unions. This has often led to strikes, sit-ins and mass action by workers or pensioners.
In a recent display of the poor treatment of disengaged workers and its consequences, former workers of the defunct national telecommunications conglomerate, Nigeria Telecommunications Plc (NITEL), picketed and temporarily shut down the premises of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) for hours, holding the workers hostage.
The workers were aggrieved over the failure of BPE to settle the N1. 7 billion in workers disengagement benefits, many years after the privatisation of NITEL. The privatisation entailed the sale of the telecommunications giant to corporate enterprises who were believed would be efficient in managing the company in a profitable manner.
It was believed that the better management under private investors would be more profitable yielding gain for both the new managers and the public by way of better services.
To hand over this company and others that were privatised, entailed forcefully relieving the workers of their jobs with the promise that government would settle their financial entitlements and that with time, those with requisite expertise would be re-engaged by the new owners.
Close to ten years since the privatisation exercise was completed, the affected workers are still owed over N1 billion. The usual practice by government is that they promise the workers everything under the sun to ensure they have their way but after making initial settlement of the claims, the authorities begin to dither on the balance. This attitude provoked the temporary occupation of BPE offices in Abuja, last week.
It is doubtful whether government would learn any lesson from the workers action.
Today, NITEL is no more and the huge investment by the nation in the telecoms sector is up in smoke. While majority of the workforce has been laid off and many of them not due for retirement have joined the army of the unemployed, the “management whiz-kids” to whom the government sold the company for better performance failed to perform any miracle. Rather than improve on the company in terms of performance and investment, the new owners engaged in unbridled recklessness that led to asset stripping. The nation lost on all rounds.
The nation had the same case of broken promises with the workers of the former Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN). Following the break-up of the latter into generation and distribution companies, the federal government privatised the power sector mid-2013. The workers were disengaged in their thousands with government promising to pay them all their due benefits. The workers were also promised that those of them with the right experience would be retained by the new power companies and their owners who would ensure that the nation’s power supply improved.
In keeping to its word, the government paid a substantial sum of the money due to the workers while some are yet to be paid till now. It has taken series of threats by the disengaged workers to get government to acknowledge that it still owes some of them and effort is now in top gear to settle all the entitlements. Pertaining to improvement in power, it is complaints galore even though parts of the country attest to noticeable improvement.
We urge the authorities to keep to agreements with workers to create a harmonious industrial and labour environment in the country. With a little more circumspection, there would be less strikes and sit-ins by workers, disengaged and serving.
