Telecommunications giant, MTN has disengaged 280 of its
employees in Nigeria.
Staffaffected include some 200 permanent employees and
about 80 contract staff across various cadres, ranging from new graduates to
senior managers.
Many had 15 years with the company having joined MTN after
it opened office in Nigeria in 2001.
It was gathered that workers were given a severance of
75% of their gross monthly income multiplied by the number of years with the
company.
“Given that the company is about 16 years old in Nigeria,
the severance package brought pain and discontent among the affected staff,” a
source told Premium Times.
“With the payoff structure, senior managers with 15 years of
service were left with about N15 million. Most of the staff got less than N5
million.”
The source said the company introduced the voluntary
severance scheme, VSS, to provide a window for one week in April, for persons
who have served in MTN for five years and above to take up.
The 280 who decided to leave under the VSS were to be paid
the equivalent of their three weeks gross salary for every year they worked
with MTN.
“What it means is that if one worked in MTN for five years,
one would be paid three weeks of their gross salaries times five,” the source
added.
MTN, a few weeks ago, paidadditional N30bn fine to Nigerian government.
By Wale Odunsi
