The Wounded Conscience

The news had it recently that an expatriate, Mr. Surendra Bhagwandass, resigned his appointment as Base Maintenance Manager at Carverton Helicopters on Friday,  10th January,  2014 (Vanguard Saturday, 11th January, 2014). Well, what’s so special about one overfed expatriate resigning his job, you will ask. Nothing. Except that Surendra did not surrender his job because he got a better offer somewhere. He resigned because he was more Nigerian than our Minister for Labour and Productivity. He resigned because he was dissatisfied with the way the Minister was doing his job. Mr. Bhagwandass seemed to understand part of the job of the Minister of Labour than Hon. Chief Emeka Wogu does.

What really happened?  Mr. Bhagwandass worked with Carverton Helicopters as Base Maintenance Manager, a position that made him to earn plum salary, and so, lived comfortably. Like other expatriates, he was paid in dollars, accommodated at company expense,  provided with security escorts if he had to leave home for office, or the other way, at unholy hours. Above all his salary was paid as and when due. So what went wrong, you would ask. Carverton Helicopters was initially set up to bridge the gap in off-shore helicopter services but has since ventured into providing logistics and environmental support  services to Oil and Gas fields both onshore and offshore.

The company is doing fine by any standard. The Chairman,  the Executive Vice Chairman, the Managing Director are Nigerians while the Technical Director is Belgian, and the Director of Operations is French. With such multinational management, one would expect Carverton to demonstrate world best practices and fair play in labour matters and personnel issues. The Nigerian wing of the management,  if not an ordinary front, should naturally protect and defend the interest of their compatriot employees. Not so. The company discriminates against the Nigerian employees on their soil. It’s not equal pay for equal job. Colour pigmentation determines your pay and your treatment. While the expatriates were paid in dollars,  their Nigerian counterparts who, incidentally, put in more hours are paid in Naira.  For the Nigerian employees no salary structure, no promotion, no welfare package. Yet under the watchful eyes of Nigerian Executive Vice Chairman,  what is sauce for goose is not sauce for gander.

If men would do the right things there would be no need for laws. But man is too self-centred to do the right things. That is why we have labour laws to regulate employment affairs, that is why we have the Ministry of Labour and Productivity,  and a Mnister of Labour and Productivity, in person of Chief Emeka Wogu to enforce the laws. Of course, Carverton case is not isolated. There are so many anti-labour practices in this country, including casualisation but the Minister and the Ministry are far  from the Nigerian workers to be sensitive to their plights. Enforcement of proper labour practice including non-discrimination against Nigerian employees is long jettisoned. Of what use is a labour ministry which cannot protect the interest of Nigerian employees? 

Carverton Helicopters is symptomatic of ill-treatment often meted to Nigerian employees on their own soil by foreign owned companies with local acolytes, at times pretending to be directors, but who actually have no say. They know that the Nigerian people are orphans with no government that is parental enough to protect them and protest their exploitation. Rules are not enforced. Checks and balances are not ensured. Monitoring and inspection are not maintained. What a shame!

What measures are put in place by the Ministry of Labour and Productivity to ensure that aggrieved workers have opportunity to lodge complaints against ill-treatment by their employers? None! A visit to the site of the Ministry speaks volumes. At the site of nigeria.gov.ng (the official website of the nation) where the Ministry of Labour was listed under Issues menu, there was virtually nothing in it. I mean nothing! The only notice was “Labour-and-productivity coming soon”. Coming soon! Since when? For how long? Pray, in this age of Internet “take aways” and instant everything, how long does it take to upload into a website? In fact to create and launch a dynamic site does not take up to half the time it will take to produce a hard copy magazine.  Under the demo.galaxybackbone.com.ng where the Ministry was again listed, the site was vacuous! Empty! Blank!

The only meaningful thing on the page was an indication that there was Ministry of Labour and Productivity Newsletter accessible by signing up with email address. Shouldn’t a newsletter be easily available to the public? Why restrict access to information on your ministry? What advantage is it to the ministry if only people with email address can access their site? What is wrong with anyone reading your Newsletter online and downloading it if he so desires? Our governments are too secretive and non-transparent in their activities. There is the need to liberalise many things and bring the government closer to the people, especially the ordinary folks. Useless is a government that cannot defend the weak and the vulnerable that are daily exploited by heartless employers.

Back to Carverton Helicopters, the degree of injury and injustice to the Nigerian employees was so much that the conscience of Mr. Surendra Bhagwandass could not contain it. To think that the December salary of those hapless workers was not paid wounded his conscience. Afterall, the company was doing fine financially. According to Doyin Alegbe, the Personal Assistant to the Managing Director, Mr. Shola Falola, the Nigerian employees could not be paid on time because the company had challenge selling the dollars. Haba, what an excuse!  Is it not better to dollarize their salary rather than allow them to suffer bleak Christmas with their families? Or who says it is criminal to be paid in hard currency? Afterall didn’t the company earn its money in hard currency?  The excuse of the company is as stupid and as heartless as it goes.

One would expect all foreign and partly-foreign companies operating in Nigeria to be under the vigilant radar of the Ministry of Labour and Productivity to ensure that they comply with all extant labour laws and regulations in their relationship with Nigerian employees. For where? That’s too much expectation. Who will condemn this act of callousness and blatant insensitivity? Who will highlight the suffering of these Nigerians on their soil? Who will tell these supremacists at Carverton that their conduct was wrong, inhuman and unacceptable? Our Ministry of Labour and Productivity, and by extension the Minister, is ignorant of going-ons (because they care less),  the NLC is too restricted to affiliate member organisations’ affairs only, our human rights activists are too politically engaged to see other abuses in the polity. From most unlikely quarters arose a redeemer. “Shame on you guys” scoffed Mr. Surendra Bhagwandass, the Base Maintenance Manager against Carverton Helicopters.

And since the Minister would not resign (well, that is not customary in Africa), Mr. Surendra Bhagwandass offered to resign his job, ostensibly, on behalf of the Minister of Labour and Productivity. For those whose conscience are wounded by the injustice done to others, no sacrifice is too much to register their protest. Mr. Surendra Bhagwandass deserves a National Award. He has seen what the Minister of Labour and Productivity could not see. He has said what the Minister could not say. He has done what the Minister could not do. He deserves an award of the Republic. Hoping that Nigerian leaders are listening and learning.