By Kayode Sanni-Arewa
Dana Air has sacked several workers without paying their salary backlogs, some of the affected workers have revealed.
Though the management of the airline recently blamed it on the ongoing operational audit by regulatory authorities, the affected employees said it is part of the move by the airline to shut down operations.
In April that the Nigerian government had directed the management of the airline to suspend its commercial operations over safety concerns.
This directive was given by the Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo following an incident that happened at Murtala Muhammadu International Airport, Lagos State.
It was earlier reported how a commercial aircraft belonging to Dana Air skidded off the runway at the airport.
A photograph obtained by an online medium captured the moment after the aircraft skidded off the runway.
The passengers were evacuated safely and no casualty was recorded from the incident. However, the incident raised concerns regarding the fitness of Dana Air aircraft for domestic commercial operations in the country.
However, some of the workers accused the Group Managing Director/CEO of Dana Group of Companies, Jacky Hathiramani of causing the issues by “micromanaging every department of the company”.
Regarding the issues, one of the dismissed workers said, “What happened in April about the runway excursion happened and rightly so, the authorities were able to find out the root cause of all these problems, and it still stems from the fact that he micromanages every department and things they are supposed to buy, he won’t buy them.
Our warehouse for spares is practically empty because he doesn’t buy spares and he flies one of the oldest planes.
“That thing happened at the end of April and he didn’t say anything to the staff members. Five days later, they sent an email to staff members that he was putting all the staff on leave without pay.
“We have all these captured in our staff letter and even in law, if you are disengaging me, you pay me one month in lieu with notice. You would have also paid me salaries for the months I have worked.
“But now you owe me salaries. You are not paying me one month in lieu notice and you are asking me to leave. Aside from that, from inception since 2008, they have been deducting pensions from staff members but they have never remitted it. They don’t remit pension deductions, they don’t remit taxes.
“We are saying okay, you want to lay all of us off, fine. You have new investors and the new investors require that part of their condition will be to overhaul your staff and in your opinion, overhaul means sacking everybody, fine, pay us what is right to us.
“Pay us our benefits and all the deductions that you have made from our salaries for pensions and taxes and we will go. Is that a problem? It is your right to disengage us but it is our right to collect our benefits. Our people have worked in that airline for up to 15 years.”
The workers revealed that they were planning to collectively engage a senior lawyer who is a human rights activist to file a legal action against the company.
SaharaReporters