Crisis Hits Grooming over Alleged Mass Sack, N27.44m Unpaid Benefits
The Nigerian labour law under the terms and conditions of employment (cap C) indicates under the Redundancy column that the employer shall use his best endeavours to negotiate redundancy payments to any discharged workers who are not protected by regulations made.
It also provides regulations, generally or in particular cases, for the compulsory payment of Redundancy Allowances on the termination of a worker’s employment because of his redundancy.
THECONSCIENCEng gathered that labour laws, however, were flagrantly flouted by
Grooming Centre, a popular micro-financing centre in Nigeria especially among low scale traders and artisans, as the company embarked on an alleged sack of workers without adequate notice or payment of stipulated due benefits since June 2020.
During a fact finding mission, we uncovered that letters sent to the Grooming Centre by the Law Office of Ponle Adeoye, Legal Practitioners clearly states that Mrs Olufunke Akinrefon, Onome Mensah, Idanweka Titilayo and Ojo Misilat have been deprived of redundancy benefits accruable to them for no fewer than 9 months.
It was also uncovered that calculations of figures contained in some documents, showed that “Idanweka Titilayo is entitled to the sum of N 5,042,332.49 ( Five million, Forty-Two Thousand, three hundred and thirty-two Naira, forty Nine Kobo; Funke Akinrefon is entitled to N12,547,436.56, ( Twelve Million, Five hundred and Forty-Seven thousand, Four hundred and thirty-six Naira fifty-six Kobo) Ojo Misilat N4,856,876.38 ( Four million Eight hundred and fifty-six thousand, eight hundred and seventy-six Naira, Thirty-Eight Kobo ), while Onome Mensah’s is estimated to be over N5Million only respectively, all amounting to N27,446,645.43.”
Meanwhile, the final letter sighted by our Correspondent following series of letters sent to Grooming without response demanding the above unpaid benefits to the aforementioned names by the Law firm, ” dated 15th October 2020 and 27th November 2020 respectively, which was received and acknowledged by the Company stated: ” You have failed, refused and neglected to respond to the said letters in respect of all our clients stated above, we hereby further demand for our clients’ entitlement for all the four ex-staff in your company.
“You are hereby given 48hours from receipt of this letter to pay the sum indebted to our clients. NOTE: failure to comply with the instruction of our clients by paying the sum demand by our clients shall leave us with no other option to seek legal redress in court and further demanding for damages”, it stated.
According to one of the affected former employee who spoke on behalf of three others said, “for close to 12 years that I worked for the firm, I had never observed an annual leave, also the company has been lying to be a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) to the Federal Government because of the huge amount of the tax they will pay, even while deducting taxes from all the workers.
“Grooming microfinance didn’t give us a tax certificate as evidence of remittance to the government but always sent the graphic presentation they deducted from our salaries as taxpayers.
“This is the more reason why Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and anti graft agency, EFCC, need to investigate Grooming microfinance over fraud because they had just started microfinance bank two years ago, while they had been operating as same for over twelve years but lied to the government and carry out the same activities of being an NGO”.
A statement on the Company website says “Grooming Centre is a Non-Governmental Organization with a primary aim to address the near absence of financial services to the large population of people engaged in small trading and micro productive activities in many parts in Nigeria.
“We are committed to promoting financial inclusion and empowering our members through the creation of innovative micro-products that changes lives.”
Email, call and text message sent to the company’s official contact lines by THECONSCIENCEng have yet to be responded to.