Mass Sack: Reps summon Huawei boss

The House of Representatives committee on Telecommunications has summoned the Chief Executive Officer of Huawei telecommunications company, over mass sack of Nigerians working in the firm.

Huawei is a Chinese firm which manages equipment for some leading telecommunications operators in Nigeria.

The committee also demanded a comprehensive documents showing its nominal roll list of expatriates working with the firm in Nigeria, as well as the Nigerian staff working with them.

Chairman of the committee, Hon. Saheed Akinade-Fijabi issued this summon during an investigative hearing on the massive loss of job in the industry and drop in revenue accrued to the federal government in the last one year.

The lawmaker noted that the committee required relevant documents to determine whether or not the country’s labour laws are complied with, saying that “We need to see that our labour laws are respected,” he said.

The committee had queried submissions by the representative of Huawei, Mr. Osita Nwneze, who disclosed that the company has 339 expatriates working in Nigeria.

Nweze also explained that some staff were laid off from the service of Huawei due to weakness of Naira in the last one year, which according to him affected adversely affected the company’s operations.

According to Osita, the company recorded 60 per cent loss between 2015 and 2016, which also affected the revenue returns to the federal government of Nigeria.

According to him, “The issue of job loss can be broken down to the problem with forex, this has affected our business as we can only have business when operators buy from us. Between 2015 and 2016, the company recorded about 60 per cent loss”.