FG Sacks NAFDAC, NDLEA, Others From Seaports

As part of efforts to make the seaports efficient, cheaper and more userfriendly, the Federal Government has announced the sack of some government agencies comprising of National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency and Standards Organisation of Nigeria from the nation’s seaports.

Also affected in the shake-up, which reduced government agencies operating at the seaports from 14 to about six are Directorate of Naval Intelligence, Nigerian Plant Quarantine Services, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission, National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency and the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, among others.

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Airtel re-absorbs 1,535 sacked workers

Airtel Nigeria said on Tuesday in Lagos that arrangement has been concluded to re-absorb the 1,535 Nigerians laid off by its consulting firms. They are expected to resume work on Thursday.

The management of the company was summoned by the state House of Assembly to explain the rationale behind the reported sack of the affected workers.

Appearing on the floor of the House of Assembly alongside other members of the management team, Mr Jubril Saba, said the affected workers were not direct employees of Airtel.

According to him, the workers lost their jobs at the expiration of the contractual agreement between the firms they were working for and Airtel.

He said, “Airtel and the Nigeria Labour Congress(NLC) have been on the issue since June as a result of the complaints but could not conclude before their contract expired. There is no iota of truth in the report that the company laid off over 3,000 workers. In Lagos, we have 448 call offices and 1,087 in Abuja. Airtel Nigeria has no exploitative tendency. The company has the intention of resolving the issue with its partners and discuss with labour unions.”

Reacting, the Speaker, Lagos State House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji, called on the management of the company to see itself as a partner in progress and reverse any decision capable of inflicting pain on the down trodden.

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BBC slashing 2,000 jobs

LONDON: British Broadcasting Corp. has announced plans to slash 2,000 jobs in an effort to cut its budget by 20 percent over the next five years.

Details of the Delivering Quality First plan were presented to staffers Thursday morning.

BBC Director General Mark Thompson said the changes are necessary to create "a smaller, radically reshaped BBC."

In addition to the elimination of 2,000 jobs across the BBC, another 1,000 employees will relocate from London to Salford where BBC Three is set to move in 2016, the broadcasting giant said on its Web site.

The technicians' union Bectu blasted the plan and said Thompson is "destroying jobs and destroying the BBC."

The National Union of Journalists also remarked, "The BBC will not be the same organization if these cuts go ahead."

Despite the cutbacks, no channels or radio stations are expected to close, the BBC said.

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Ajimobi, Akala trade words over sack of 2,262 workers, traders

Abiola Ajimobi, Incumbent Governor of  Oyo State

GOVERNOR Abiola Ajimbo of Oyo State and his immediate predecessor, Adebayo Alao-Akala, were at each other’s throat yesterday over alleged sack of 2,262 workers and traders from their jobs and filth in Ibadan metropolis.

Akala, through his spokesperson, Prince Dotun Oyelade, said: “Ajimobi’s sporadic visits to various sites amount to nothing in the face of ever-mounting heaps of refuse in Ibadan city. Instead of clearing refuse dumps, Ajimobi is clearing hapless traders from their stalls where they get their livelihood in the name of ‘environmental restoration’ which is a fanthom exercise to bring Ibadan to decrepit state.”

On creation of 20,000 jobs

On the creation of 20,000 jobs within the first 100 days in office, Akala said with about five weeks to the expiration of the promise, Ajimobi sacked 262 traffic officers and also sacked over 2000 traders from their stalls at Molete, Secretariat and Oyo/Ibadan road.

He said the governor should take advantage of the new environmental trucks procured by the Akala Government, reassure the 1200 sweepers employed over a year ago, and maintain the environmental standard that he inherited even if he could not improve on it.

Park turned into bush

Akala maintained that even the beautiful park in front of the Government House where the Governor lives has turned into a bush which is probably an excuse for the filth all over the city, the type not seen in the last 4 years.

Need to visit sites

But, Ajimobi, through his Senior Special Asistant, Dr. Festus Adedayo said what the former governor called “sporadic visits” was necessary because infrastructure had been rampaged by the Alao-Akala government, so much that only a physical examination of the rot could provide incentives to tackling them headlong.

Alao Akala, Ex Governor of Oyo.

According to him, one of the dividends of Governor Ajimobi’s “sporadic visits” was the discovery, at the Solid Waste Management Yard, Agodi-Gate area of the state capital, of the abandonment, for about three years now, of 15 trucks purchased by the Alao-Akala government at a suspicious cost of N595 million.

Park turned into bush

Akala maintained that even the beautiful park in front of the Government House where the Governor lives has turned into a bush which is probably an excuse for the filth all over the city, the type not seen in the last 4 years.

He explained that “not only were the trucks abandoned for three years, none of them ever worked. They were given as contract to a top Lagos PDP Senator in what would rank as the extreme cronyism of the Alao-Akala years. None of the trucks ever worked for a day and they had been lying fallow there for three years”.

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