Business Briefs

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THE National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria, NUTGTWN, has asked the owners and management of Arewa Textiles Plc, to pay workers their N1.075 billion entitlements. The union in a statement detailed its efforts at making the owners of the company to pay the entitlements since 2005 including legal action, where Union Bank Plc, joint receivers, pleaded to settle the issue out of court.

Chimezie Sylvester, deputy general secretary, NUTGTWN, lamented that both parties could not reach an agreement since the closure of the company in 2005. He said in the course of the Federal High Court’s proceedings, the trade dispute declared against Arewa Textile Plc in May 2004, came up for mention on 14th February 2006 and 25th April 2006. On the above dates, the union had its memorandum prepared and submitted to the Industrial Arbitration Panel, IAP, and the court summoned the receivers to appear before it and they did.

“The receivers having gone through the Union memorandum which prayed the IAP to have its members’ terminal benefits paid with union dues deducted, requested verification of the claims and details of individual computation of entitlements. The court granted this request and advised that the computerised individual benefits of members in the employment of the company with union dues should be submitted to the IAP on June 12, 2006. At the resumed sitting, the union intimated the court that the details requested could only be possible if the receivers could open the company for the union representatives to access the staff files. The receivers initially agreed to the request but later failed to open the company and staff records could not be accessed,” he said.

Compensation for Poor Telecom Services

TELECOMS services subscribers under the auspices of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers, NATCOMS, have insisted on their demand that telecoms firms must compensate subscribers with about N602 billion worth of airtime for poor services. The association had, earlier this month, petitioned the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators, ALTON, the umbrella body of the mobile operators and the Nigerian Communications Commission over the poor quality of services experienced by the subscribers and the need for the operators to compensate their subscribers.

In the petition, NATCOMS demanded that telecoms operators pay N5,000 to each telecoms services subscriber in the country as a way of compensating them for the poor quality of services they experienced in the recent past. With the N5,000 worth of credit demand per each of the 120.3 million active telephone users in the country, operators are being requested to pay N602 billion worth of credit to telecoms consumers.

But the telecoms operators and the NCC have shown that they were not taking the rights group seriously as they seem to have shunned NATCOMS’ demand. Deolu Ogunbanjo, president of the association, said the consumer advocacy body was serious about the demand, giving telecoms firms a two-day ultimatum to respond the consumers’ demand.

Ogunbanjo, regretted that the petition of his group through ALTON may have been ignored as there was no reply from the concerned mobile network operators or ALTON, which serves as the umbrella organisation for them. In addition, NATCOMS lamented the non-commencement of action by the NCC or even by the ministry of communication technology.

Meanwhile, it was gathered that the renewed insistence by NATCOMS is coming on the heels of compensation package announced by MTN Ghana to be paid to its subscribers on some shortcomings in service delivery such as poor quality of service, drop calls, billing errors, among others.

Compiled by Anayo Ezugwu 

— Sep. 9, 2013 @ 01:00 GMT

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