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Pius Akutah orders mass dismissal of contract staff, casual workers at Shippers’ Council

Pius Ukeyima Akutah
— continues to keep 45 sacked freshly recruited staff guessing.
The Eyewitness Reporter
Five months after he ordered the suspension of the last recruitment exercise done by his predecessor, Emmanuel Jime, in which he sent 45 newly employed staff packing, Pius Ukeyima Akutah, the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’Council, has struck again.
He has asked for the massive removal of all the contract staff and casual workers in the agency.
Impeccable sources told our roving reporter that the council last week instructed all the workers in these categories to cease coming to work as they were allegedly making the corporate headquarters of the council unnecessarily congested, rowdy and noisy.
According to sources, the message was conveyed through the agency’s Human Resources Manager, Mrs Okam Adaku.
It was reliably gathered that some of these categories of staff have been providing cheap labour for the council for as back as five years ago .
It was also gathered that ex-corpers who carried out their primary assignments at the council at various times but stayed back on the instructions of their departmental heads for stipends were equally affected.
“They were all informed by the HR manager to stop coming to work as their presence was causing a nuisance to the management”
They were warned that if anything got missing after the instruction for them to stay away, they would be held responsible” the source claimed.
Some of these people are the ex-Corpers who served at the council at different times.
” While some just finished their service last year, others had finished as far back as five years ago”.
” They were there at the pleasure of their departmental heads who probably felt they were competent while on service but asked them to stay for monthly stipends until there could be openings in the council or anywhere else.
“It was a gesture done on humanitarian grounds at no cost to the council which incidentally gets cheap labour from them”
These are casual workers” the source bemoaned.
According to the source, there is another category which is contract staff whose status was a bit glorified than the casual ones.
However, Rebecca Adamu, the Acting Public Relations officer of the Council said there are no casual or contract staff at the Shippers Council.
She said the management only asked the Youth Corp members who had finished their service to leave.
”We have no contract staff or casual workers at the Council. The Council only asked those corp members who have finished their service to leave to give room for other intending Corp members” Mrs Adamu briskly informed our reporter.
Incidentally, some of these ex-Corpers were among the 45 staff employed in October 2023 by the immediate past Executive secretary of the council, Emmanuel Jime at the twilight of his administration but whose employment was cancelled by the incumbent ES.
It was exclusively reported by theeyewitnessnews that the first assignment carried out by Pius Akutah when he assumed duty in November was the sack of these staff, some of whom were ex-Corpers who had provided cheap labour for the council in the last five years.
However, Akutah had explained that the recruitment of the 45 staff did not follow due process and was against the civil service extant rules”
He had claimed that he acted based on the petition by the in-house workers’ union when he resumed duties in November.
“All this time, I was not here then, and the union kicked against the recruitment process and said it must be stopped.
” When I came into the office and saw the petition kicking against the recruitment on my table, I actually said we would go on and conclude the recruitment exercise.

“That we will do it in a manner that is in line with the Public Service Rules.

“So, we wrote the affected 45 workers and told them to hold on, that we are suspending the employment process and will review it to ensure it follows due process.”

Even though, he promised to recall the sacked staff, some of whom had resumed duties at the corporate headquarters of the council, to regularise their recruitment ” as soon as possible” about five months later, the sacked staff are still kept in limbo.
“The process to review the employment is on, that’s why I didn’t want to speak about this publicly.

” If you remember, I resumed here on the 1st of November 2023, and since I resumed here, there have been so many activities between Abuja and Lagos.

“We ought to have started the review of that employment in November 2023 when I resumed here, but because of my very busy schedule, we have not been able to begin the review.

“We are calling everybody back very soon to see how we can go on with the employment exercise.” the Shippers’Council boss had then promised when asked how soon the review exercise would start.
However, five months after he sent the beleaguered staff home with the promise to recall them, they were still waiting with no word from the council.
Adamu Rebecca, the spokesperson of the Council however said the process of revalidation of the recruitment exercise is ongoing.
”The process of regularisation of the exercise is ongoing’, she declared.
Our reporter nevertheless gathered that the Council’s helmsman may have sold a dummy to the affected staff as he had no plan to recall them.
“We haven’t heard anything from the council since November when we were sent home with the promise to recall us to regularise our recruitment exercise” one of the casualties of the recruitment exercise confided in our reporter.
“We heard that the Es had decided to cancel the recruitment exercise and conduct a fresh one” the disconsolate source whispered to our reporter.
With the latest mass chase away of the casual workers and contract staff, stakeholders were wondering if staff dismissal was part of the mandate of the Benue state-born technocrat.
“Since he came, he has not done anything to impact the industry” an angry freight forwarder based in Apapa declared.
“He hasn’t shown any capacity to carry out the mandate of the council of protecting the shippers and calling the shipping companies and terminal operators to order as a commercial regulator”
” If he is not travelling to Abuja or Benue, his home state, he would be ordering for the sack of some hapless staff,” another freight forwarder said derisively.
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  1. Junction

    September 11, 2024 at 12:16 pm

    How do I contact you guys as regards to Nigerian Shippers council recruitment which is not done based on merit and also the gross abuse of corp members human rights going on in NSC?

    Reply

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Customs collects N1.585 trillion from 51 compliant traders under AEO programme 

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