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MTN Nigeria sacks 280 workers



MTN Nigeria on Friday sacked 280 staffers, which is about 15 percent of its workforce. Most of the affected staff had spent between five and 15 years in the company’s employ. MTN kicked-off operations in Nigeria in 2001.

Informed sources said the telecoms company wishes to inject new blood from the more tech savvy generation into its operations.

BusinessDay is informed that MTN put out a notice in March for those who might wish to voluntarily disengage from the company, under its voluntary severance scheme (VSS) giving a one week window which expired on Thursday April 28. Following on this, about 200 long serving staffers voluntarily disengaged. Since this figure did not meet the company’s 15 percent target, they then laid –off an additional 80 staffers last Friday.

There are reverberations of disenchantment as those who left were given three weeks pay for every one month served, as severance pay and those affected believe that a big and organised corporate player such as MTN should do more.

Informed sources told BusinessDay that the bulk of those affected got between N5 million and N15 million severance pay.

MTN had been encumbered by a huge fine imposed by government for failing to deactivate about 5.2 million unregistered SIm cards from its network.

Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, disclosed at a News Agebcy of Nigeria forum in December last year, that MTN had paid N80 billion of the N330 billion fine.

The company was initially fined 5.2 billion dollars (N1.04 trillion).

The fine was later reduced to N330 billion.

MTN Nigeria recorded nearly $1 billion in profit in 2016.

Source: Jumoke Akiyode - Business Day

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