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Tag: Sack

  • BREAKING: Ondo sacks Resident doctors

    The Ondo State Government has approved the termination of Resident doctors at the University of Medical Sciences Teaching Hospital (UNIMETH).

    Their sack was announced in a letter announcing the suspension of the institution residency training programme from August 1st, 2020

    It urged all Resident doctors directly employed by the hospital to seek continuation of their programme in other institutions where there are ongoing training program.

    The sacking of the Resident doctors might not be unconnected to the last week’s strike action recently embarked upon by the doctors.

    Spokesman of the Ondo ARD, Taiwo Olagbe, listed their demands to include provision of PPE and other security measures to save their members from COVID-19, payment of outstanding arrears from September 2019 to May 2020, payment of 50 percent COVID-19 allowance amongst others.

    The letter announcing suspension of the residency programme dated June 23 and signed by Director of Administration of UNIMETH, Adeeyo Babatunde, said it was to allow the hospital focused on service delivery in order to combat COVID-19 outbreak without distraction of agitation from the Resident Doctors.

    The letter said some Resident doctors might be considered for re-admission when the programme recommenced.

    Chief Medical Director of UNIMEDTH, Dr. Oluwole Ige, blasted the Residents doctors saying they were more interested in unionism than commitment to work.

    Dr. Ige said the Residents doctors were the most disruptive group to the growth of the hospital despite earning the best pay package among other group of doctors in the hospital.

    He spoke at the commissioning of the first dialysis centre in Akure, the State capital built by Lions Club International, District 404A1.

    Dr. Ige stated that the good things happening at the hospital were being overshadowed by the constant agitation of the Resident doctors.

    According to him, “The Resident doctors earn the best pay pay package among the four group of doctors in the hospital with additional benefit of training and advancing to be consultant. That have been the most disruptive group to the growth of the hospital.

    “They have exaggerated and deliberately distorted the issues of their wage to the extent of putting the hospital management and government into disrepute.

    “The training programme might be suspended until such a time that it will be conducive to train without rancour.”

    Dr.Ige stated the cost of dialysis in the centre was the cheapest in the region and as such the common man would not need travel outside Akure for renal treatment.

    District Governor of Lions Clubs, Adekunle Adedipe, said the renal centre was built with funding from the Lions Club International Foundation (LCIF) and the Ondo State Government.

    Adedipe said they opted to build the dialysis centre after carrying out needs assessment in various communities and discovered that Akure lacked functional dialysis centre despite rise in renal ailments.

    He stated that further findings revealed that renal patients in critical conditions were ferried to Ondo town or Owo for treatment.

    He said the LCIF provided take-off grant of $106,533 and supported with N10m from the Ondo State Government.

    Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu who commissioned dialysis centre disclosed that the centre would be run by a private consortium for effective service delivery.

    Akeredolu stated that Adedipe was committed to donating a life saving project to the state during his one year stay as District Governor.

    He said the state hospital would soon commence renal transplant.

    Dr. Olagbe described their sacking as a joke that cannot hold any water and could crumble health sector in the state.

    Olagbe said comments from the CMD were regrettable and unfortunate stating that their agitations were genuine because of non-payment of salários and arrears.

    He said plans were on to slash their salaries from June.

  • Ondo Deputy Gov reappoints aides sacked by Akeredolu

    Ondo Deputy Gov reappoints aides sacked by Akeredolu

    The crisis in Ondo State took a new turn after the Deputy Governor, Agboola Ajayi reappointed aides sacked by the Governor, Romiti Akeredolu.

    Governor Akeredolu sacked the Special Assistant on New Media to the embattled Deputy Governor, Allen Sowore, and later sacked his Chief Press Secretary, Babatope Okeowo alongside his five other aides, and his wife.

    The aides of the Deputy Governor were sacked two days after their boss dumped the ruling, All Progressives Congress, APC for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

    In an interview with newsmen, the embattled Chief Press Secretary, Okeowo affirmed that the deputy governor had reappointed all the aides sacked by the State Governor.

    “ Yes, it is true that the governor announced our sack, but there is no cause for alarm, as we have been reabsorbed by the Deputy Governor”.

    Recall that on Sunday, Ajayi quit the APC, following protracted friction between him and the governor, and subsequently picked the membership card of the PDP.

  • FG threatens sack as meeting with doctors end in deadlock

    The meeting held yesterday in Abuja between the federal government and the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) ended in deadlock, fueling a veiled threat by the federal government to sack the striking doctors.

    The meeting which started by 1pm, ended at about 7.40 pm, without achieving any results.

    At the end of the meeting, the Minister of Health Ehanire Osagie disclosed that the Federal Ministry of Health would issue a directive to all medical directors in the country to open a register by 7a.m today (Wednesday) and record those who come to work and those who fail to come to work.

    The move by government is coming as the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige said that federal government has commenced the payment of new hazard allowances to health workers.

    Ehanire who spoke shortly after the talks with the leadership of NARD failed to yield positive outcome, noted that health is very important at this crucial time.

    He said: “We are ready to protect the lives of Nigerians; we are not going to allow our hospitals to fallow.”

    Ehanire said that Nigeria is the first country in the world where doctors went on strike during a global pandemic.

    Speaking via phone with journalists, the President of NARD, Dr. Aliyu Sokomba said, ”we would call off the strike only when the government comes up with tangible outcome; we would call of the strike within 24 hours”.

    Ngige who along the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire held a meeting with the leadership of the striking medical doctors at his office, said that government is going to implement the rest of the agreement with the doctors in stages.

    When THISDAY asked the minister about the outcome of the meeting with the doctors, Ngige said that no conclusions and that the leadership of NARD disclosed that they needed to go back for its executive committee meeting.

    He said that the doctors have gone for consultations with their members, adding that they would get back to government after 24 hours.

    “They said that they haven’t seen any tangible thing from government and that their accounts were yet to be credited. But I told them that the federal government has paid N2 billion to health workers across board in 14 teaching hospitals and Federal Medical Centres as at Monday.

    Speaking on the promise made by the federal government to begin payment of the new hazard allowances to all categories of frontline health workers involved in covid-19 treatment, Ngige said:

    “There are about 43 or 52 teaching hospitals and Federal Medical Centres in the country and we are paying them in batches. By Wednesday (today), the amount paid out would have hit N4 billion”.

    However indications that the meeting ended without any tangible outcome emerged when the NARD leadership failed to come back to the venue of the talks at the Ministry of Labour for the continuation of negotiations.

    Only the president of NARD, Sokomba went back apparently to see the minister but he left almost immediately, and refused to speak to journalists. When journalists reached him on his telephone, he said that they were not going to resume further talks until the government has done something tangible tangible to meet their demands.

  • I will sack you if you embark on strike, El-Rufai threatens doctors

    Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai has vowed to sack doctors and other health workers threatening to embark on strike.

    He said his administration would not succumb to blackmail by the doctors.

    El-Rufai, in a statement on Thursday night by his Special Adviser on Media and Communication, Muyiwa Adekeye, said he would keep the health facilities in the state running and protect workers who were willing to work.
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    The governor stated that the strike notice served by the doctors was “criminal” in view of the fact that the purported strike to be declared amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
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    El-Rufai added that his government would not be bent by the industrial action into excluding health workers from the mandatory donation of 25% salary by all civil servants to fund the provision of palliatives for vulnerable people impacted by the lockdown.
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    “The government rejects the strike threat and will regard persons who fail to show up at their assigned places of work as having forfeited their employment. Every health worker that is willing to work is required to sign the register at the Ministry of Health and the health institutions to which they are deployed.
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    “The Ministry of Health has the mandate of the government to ensure that residents of Kaduna State are not deprived of public health services.
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    “Every effort will be made to ensure that health facilities keep functioning, staffed by willing workers who will be guaranteed free and safe access to health facilities. Those who are not willing to work are strongly warned against criminal actions such as attempts to impede access to workplaces, harass willing workers or to sabotage facilities and equipment,” he said,
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    The Punch quoted El-Rufai as saying that the “state government will not be misled into granting health workers a special status amongst public servants. The consequences of concessions made along such lines by previous governments have created a sense that some public servants are more precious than others.”
    …

  • EXCLUSIVE: Unilever fires staff after massive donations for Coronavirus

    EXCLUSIVE: Unilever fires staff after massive donations for Coronavirus

    Multinational company, Unilever has fired a massive number of staff in Nigeria after donating the sum of 100 million euros to help fight the dreadful global Coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports Unilever, one of the world’s leading consumer goods companies, also fired a number of brand ambassadors in the country.

    The dismissal, TNG learnt, is expected to take effect from June, barring any last minute intervention.

    “Why should our dismissal be now, of all time! We have spent all we have during this pandemic and we were not expecting something like this.

    “Good people of Nigeria, help us beg Unilever to at least give us till the end of the year to be able to save something before asking us to go. Please don’t do this to us,” one of those affected told TNG in tears.

    According to a source who refused to be named, over 400 staff and brand ambassadors of the company are affected.

    The staff and brand ambassadors of Unilever Nigerian Plc affected had already been notified, the source revealed to TNG.

    While reasons for the retrenchment are yet to be known, efforts to reach Oluwasoromidayo George, Director of Corporate Affairs and Sustainable Business, Ghana and Nigeria at Unilever proved abortive at the time of filing this report.

    Also, the Unilever Ghana and Nigeria Corporate Communications department refused comments.

    Recall, however, that in April, Unilever Nigeria Plc announced Q1 results of its operations. Key extracts of the three-month report for the period ended March 31, 2020.

    In the period, the company saw a 30 percent drop in revenues, reflecting a tough start to the year for the consumer goods giant.

    The firm’s turnover dropped from N19.24 billion in first quarter 2019 to N13.33 billion in first quarter 2020.

    Gross profit declined from N3.87 billion to N3.43 billion. Operating profit slumped to N453.45 million in first quarter 2020 compared with N1.32 billion in first quarter 2019.

    Profit before tax dropped by 53 per cent to N948.47 million in 2020 as against N2.03 billion in 2019.

    With tax gains, net profit after tax increased to N1.11 billion in first quarter 2020, but still below N1.52 billion recorded in comparable period of 2019.

    Earnings per share stood at 19 kobo by March 2020 as against 26 kobo posted by March 2019.

    Unilever Nigeria had witnessed a general decline in performance in 2019 as the company struggled with sluggish market and declining margins.

    The audited report for the year ended December 31, 2019 had shown that turnover dropped from N92.89 billion in 2018 to N60.5 billion in 2019.

    The company recorded a loss after tax of N7.42 billion in 2019 as against net profit of N10.55 billion in 2018.

    However the bad outlook, Unilever was not deterred from going ahead to make massive contributions to the global response against COVID-19, at the detriment of its employees.

    During the quarter, Unilever introduced a wide-ranging set of measures to the tune of 100 million euros to support global and national efforts to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Also, the firm made available the sum of 500 million euros of cash flow relief for it’s suppliers and retail customers, to retain market relevance while the fate of employees is left hanging.

  • COVID-19: Access Bank opens up alleged sack of 75% workforce, closure of branches

    COVID-19: Access Bank opens up alleged sack of 75% workforce, closure of branches

    Access Bank Plc on Monday denied news making rounds that it would sack 75 per cent of its workforce and as well close over 300 branches.

    The bank denied this in a statement signed by Mr Sunday Ekwochi, its Company Secretary, posted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) website.

    It said the closure of a bank branch was an action that required the approval of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

    According to the bank, it has not applied for nor obtained the approval of CBN for the closure of its branches as widely speculated.

    “The bank has only suspended operations in some branches following the directive by the CBN.

    “At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, we suspended in-branch operations at different locations as directed by the CBN and in line with business continuity plans at vulnerable spots; whilst we continued to provide services through our alternative digital platforms.

    “In line with the phased re-opening of the economy effective May 4, following the Presidential directives, we will be resuming in-branch services in some of our affected branches in a programmed manner to ensure the health and safety of our employees and customers.

    “This is also necessary to provide relevant contingency should there be any incident arising from the pandemic.

    “We deny in its entirety the baseless and twisted speculation that the bank is sacking 75 per cent of its workforce,” said the statement.

    It noted that based on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, not all its branches would be fully open for in-branch services until later in the year.

    “This has made it impossible for many of our outsourced workers to perform duties as usual.

    “We have commenced engagement with various stakeholders with a view to ensuring that they provide the relevant services and optimum manpower as may be required by the bank on an on-going basis,” it added.

    The bank, however, assured its esteemed stakeholders that it would continue to ensure that its actions and decisions are guided by fairness, justice, equity and good conscience.

  • Atiku’s media company gives reason for employees’ sack on Workers’ Day

    Atiku’s media company gives reason for employees’ sack on Workers’ Day

    Gotel Communications Limited, the Yola-based media company which issued sack letters to scores of its staff on workers Day, May 1, has stated reason for it.

    The company, a firm of television and radio station owned by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, said the sack of staff was a result of a restructuring exercise, a process which started last year.

    The company had handed sack letters to at least 46 of its staff on Friday when workers worldwide were marking Workers Day.

    The affected staff had faulted the number of sacked workers: while some said they were over 50, others said although the initial list contained 56 staff, it was thinned down to 46.

    A statement giving reason for the sack was silent on the number of those affected. The statement, signed by the General Manager of the company, Mohammed El-Yakub, and entitled, ‘Rationalisation of staff in Gotel, outcome of long standing company restructuring,’ said Atiku Abubakar had no personal hand in the Friday layoff of workers.

    The statement said, “The rationalisation of staff at Gotel Communications Limited, a company under the umbrella of Priam Group, is a culmination of the restructuring process in the companies under our Group.

    The founder of companies under the Priam had announced that many of his business concerns will be aggregated under the Priam Group. Priam Group had embarked on a restructuring exercise which led to a merger of many companies under its umbrella.

    “Other components of the restructuring includes rationalization of workforce and thus some members of staff of the group would be laid off, with their full disengagement benefits paid to them.”

    It stressed that the current decision to “right size” the workforce in Gotel Communication Limited is the climax of the on-going restructuring exercise which was initiated last year.

    It said it was out of context “to ascribe any mundane presupposition for being responsible for the decision to lay off some of the workforce in Gotel Communication Limited,” and explained that following the unveiling of Priam Group last year, Atiku Abubakar ceased to be involved in the running of the affairs of his companies.

  • COVID-19 Palliatives: FG sacks two contractors for delaying cash disbursement in four states

    COVID-19 Palliatives: FG sacks two contractors for delaying cash disbursement in four states

    The Federal Government has terminated the contracts of two Payment Service Providers (PSP) for failure to meet up with the contractual agreement to commence Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) to beneficiaries in four states.

    The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Farouq, made the disclosure in a statement on Tuesday signed by her Special Assistant on Media, Salisu Dambatta.

    The minister said the termination was with immediate effect.

    The statement said the termination was in line with the World Bank procurement guidelines to ensure that payments commenced in the affected states on or before April 28.

    It listed the affected states as Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom in the South South region, Abia in the South East, and Zamfara in the North West.

    The statement revealed that the PSP whose contracts were terminated were, Data Mining Company and Innovative NIPOST.

    “The Federal Government cannot accept delays in the current payment round of N20,000 stipends to beneficiaries in poor and vulnerable households under any excuse in the four states or any other state of the federation.

    “The failure of any payment service providers to meet their contractual agreement is unacceptable.

    “The Federal Government through the Ministry cannot allow contractors to derail the immediate CCT to the poor and the vulnerable,” it explained.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that President Muhammadu Buhari, during his first national broadcast announced the payment as a measure to cushion the effect of the coronavirus lockdowns in the country on poor and vulnerable households.

  • Revenge time: Trump sacks first, second impeachment testifiers

    It’s vengeance time in Trump White House as Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a key witness in President Donald Trump’s impeachment inquiry at the House of Representatives was sacked from his job, his lawyer said in a statement on Friday.

    “There is no question in the mind of any American why this man’s job is over, why this country now has one less soldier serving it at the White House,” his lawyer David Pressman said.

    “LTC Vindman was asked to leave for telling the truth,” he said.

    “The most powerful man in the world – buoyed by the silent, the pliable, and the complicit” had “decided to exact revenge” on Vindman”, Pressman said.

    Vindman, a Ukrainian expert, was a staff of the National Security Council, before his sack.

    There were some reports that he may be redeployed to the Defense Department.

    Trump did not mince words about Vindman’s likely fate early on Friday when he spoke with reporters: “I’m not happy with him. You think I’m supposed to be happy with him?…They’re going to be making that decision.”

    Vindman testified to the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry in November that Trump made an improper demand of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July phone call that became the centerpiece of the probe of the Republican president.

    Vindman told a Democratic-run committee “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing” in the phone call. Trump asked Zelensky to launch investigations into both Democratic rival Joe Biden and a widely debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

    Meanwhile, Trump has also fired European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland, in apparent retribution for testifying against him in the congressional impeachment proceedings.

    “I was advised today that the president intends to recall me effective immediately as United States Ambassador to the European Union,” Sondland said in a statement. He expressed gratitude to Mr. Trump “for having given me the opportunity to serve.”

    Sondland’s dismissal came just hours after Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, the top National Security Council official on Ukraine who also testified against Trump, was fired and escorted out of the White House by security.

    Trump emerged victorious from his trial this week with a vote in the Senate, controlled by fellow Republicans who rejected abuse of power and obstruction of justice charges.

    But the president, whose term has been clouded by investigations into Russian interference in the election and then the impeachment inquiry, has said he is still bitter about the ordeal as he turns his attention to seeking a second four-year term in the Nov. 3 presidential election.

  • JUST IN: Ekiti Varsity sacks 900 workers

    The Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, has sacked 900 workers of the institution for various offences, its Vice Chancellor, Prof. Eddy Olanipekun has said on Thursday.

    Olanipekun said that the decision was taken by the institution’s Governing Council in its meeting on December 5, 2019, saying that decision was in compliance with the reports of an external private audit firm contracted to undertake a holistic audit of the institutions’ staff and finances.

    According to him, this was sequel to the recommendation of the Visitation Panel set up by Governor Kayode Fayemi, which identified among other things over staffing, redundancy and personnel misalignment in virtually all the sections of the university as the problem hindering the institution to pay its workers.

    The Vice Chancellor stated that the affected staffs were 619 workers who were allegedly employed irregularly between 2016 and 2018 by the immediate past Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Samuel Oye Bandele during his tenure and 228 staff who allegedly have some discrepancies in their educational qualification.

    Others according to insider sources included ghost workers and some staff who were said to be over ages of 65 and 70 for non-academic and academic workers respectively.

    He disclosed that the university would be able to save over N200 million monthly by the time the staff are expunged on the payroll.

    He said “619 were illegally recruited between 2016 and 2018. Some were over-aged having clocked 68 or 69 but still working when the statute prescribed 65 for nonacademic and 70 for academic staff.

    “The workers were employed irregularly against university regulations within the period 2016-2018 thereby causing major personnel misalignment and skyrocketing of the university wage bill by about 100% within two years.

    “The situation was so bad in the university that it was the monthly contributions of members of staff who belong to some Cooperative, Thrift and Credit Societies in the University that were partly and on a monthly basis used by the then university administration to pay the salaries of those that were irregularly employed and who interestingly refused to join any of the Cooperative, Thrifts and Credit Societies.

    “228 members of staff could not produce/show evidence of Primary School Leaving Certificate. And there were some ghost workers whose names were found on the university payroll without being on the university nominal role.

    “Some members of staff presented falsified birth and educational certificates. Some of the members of staff lacked the required basic educational qualification.

    “Some members of staff were illegally retained in the university services after having been due to retire. There are other cases of over aged staff. Some others lacked the required basic educational qualification.

    “Consequently after due consideration of the issues involved, and the overall best interest of the university in being properly positioned for local relevance and global competitiveness, the Governing Council of Ekiti State University has directed that those who were found to have fallen into the categories above be disengaged of their appointments forthwith in accordance with the university regulations.”