Nigeria Content Online

Workers of the
former national carrier, Nigerian Telecommunication Limited (NITEL)
have blamed the federal government for failing to pay their salary
arrears for two years.

Elias Kazzah, the
company’s staff union leader, said in an interview that, “We have not
got any information from the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) over
our two years salary but we have been consulting and contacting
government officials to look into our case.

“It is a pathetic
case; workers are dying, can’t cater for their families. We have also
reported the case to the Human Right Commission that this is unfair,
that citizens of this country are been maltreated like this without
salaries for over two years. Recently, our junior workers visited the
minister of state for information and communication; Labaran Maku to
brief him on the situation. But as I am talking to you, we have not
received any positive result,” added Mr. Kazzah.

However, Mr. Kazzah said though workers have no new idea on how to handle the situation, they have not lost hope.

“We have done
everything possible, but we are thinking of assembling all our members
at our office in Abuja, this week. At that meeting a decision would be
taken on how to go about the issue,” said Mr. Kazzah.

Nothing new

All previous
attempts by the Bureau of Public Enterprise to pay workers their
arrears have failed. In December, 2009 the bureau asked for N3 billion
as loan from Olushola Adekanola & Co; a firm of chartered
accountants and NITEL’s liquidators to pay five months salary to the
workers.

However, after one
month salary was paid to the workers, the liquidator backed out of the
agreement. Similarly, this year, the bid to purchase NITEL ended on a
sad note as it got mired in controversy with allegations dogging the
preferred bidder, New Generation Consortium.

“We learnt that bid
failed on the ground that the Bureau took some questionable actions on
the process. Definitely, it amounts to the fact that the bid has been
abandoned,” Mr. Kazzah said.

But Chukwuma
Nwokoh, Bureau spokesman said nothing has changed. “Like we earlier
said, our opinions on how to address the issue has been written to the
NCP and we are waiting for their directive,” Mr. Nwokoh said. Mr.
Nwokoh added that the seven- man ad-hoc committee made up of mostly
ministers which is expected to review the bid process has not been able
to meet so nothing has been decided on the bid.