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Workers warn against concession of railway without paying staff entitlements

By Toyin Olasinde
15 November 2016   |   2:26 am
The Nigeria Union of Railway (NUR) has warned against the planned concession of the Nigerian railway 3,505 km narrow-garage track system nationwide to General Electric ...
Rail

Rail

..Says over 10,000 employees to lose jobs
The Nigeria Union of Railway (NUR) has warned against the planned concession of the Nigerian railway 3,505 km narrow-garage track system nationwide to General Electric (GE) without paying off the present workers their entitlement.

Speaking in Lagos, the Secretary General of the union, Segun Esan, said the union is not against the privatization of railway, if the country is assured that that is the best thing to do in order to boost the nation’s economy with a proviso that the present staffers be paid their entitlements before handing over the GE as planned.

“Presently NUR have over 10,000 workers and if the Federal Government has made up its mind to hand over Nigerian railway operation to GE. As at now, no one knows the plan of government regarding the fate of the present staff. We do not know if new ones would be recruited or not.”

Quoting the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, as saying that the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), in collaboration with Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), established the project steering Committee (PSC) to be headed by the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi and Project Delivery Team (PDT) for the concession of the Nigerian Railway Corporation.

The NUR Scribe added: “The hurried and secret nature of the whole process has raised palpable fear among workers of the railways that yet another round of state orchestrated asset stripping that has characterized the sale of hundred of state-owned enterprises is underway yet again. As most observers of the Nigerian privailsation process have noted, most privatised corporations in Nigeria remain comatose years after their privatisation while workers in those companies were left the short end of the stick.”

Esan stated NUR workers are not and will not be against the concession of Nigerian Railway asset if only it is done with every sense of patriotism and due diligence with a view to making rail transport sub-sector the truly effective hub of transport system in Nigeria.

”We will not antagonise the process if the Federal government engages the workers in dialogue policy, where our demand for a genius and fair labour disengagement policy that guarantees our right of fair severance benefits from the federal government are heard and fully met before conceding railway assets to a third party. This is the preferred choice of Nigeria railway workers to dangerous, seamless transfer of workers to a concessionaire who many choose to weed the inherited workforce into joblessness, squalor and perpetual psychological trauma.

“NUR workers will keep their peace if only the Federal government decides today, inter alia, to monetize the staff quarters to workers as directed by the monetization policy of 2005 and which over a competent trail court of law has pronounced a sound judgment (Nigeria Union of Railway Workers and Anor Vs. Nigerian Railway Corporation and Ors, Suit No NICN/LA/11/2011/refers) validating our legitimate right for staff quarters to be fully monetized, after five consecutive years of legal battles between the railway workers and the agents of the state at the National Industrial Court of Nigeria. In spite of the fact that the staff quarters have ben encumbered, the Federal Government has shown no commitment to respecting the rule of law by implementing the judgment of the court,” he said

He said it has been consistently observed that assets of privatised enterprises have been deliberately undervalued, lack of due process with high level collusion between the authorities and the companies that bought the privatized enterprises leading to failure to pay over the appropriate money to government coffer. He added that the BPE has also failed to exercise its oversight function on the privatization process.

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