Mass Sack: Worries over Fate 1,000 Staff of NIPOST

Despite assurances of job security by the federal government, some 1000 workers of the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) may be axed in a radical reform to be embarked upon by the new management, according to Daily Trust.

Sources said that Asiwaju Bisi Adegbuyi, the new postal master general (PMG), had been given directive to reduce shed the workforce.

Staffers who have put in 30 years, or close to that, in service, and those working in inactive NIPOST post offices would be largely affected.

NIPOST has a workforce of about 10, 500 and 2, 500 post offices and postal agencies across the country.

“We are looking at some of them who are already old and have put in up to 30 years, or close to that, and some of them who are at the offices which are inactive,” the source said. “At least, a thousand of them may be affected for now, but government would pay them all their entitlement as they exit. It is a reform government must embark upon to bring NIPOST back to real business.” A source told Daily Trust.

But Adebayo Shittu, minister of Communications, said that there would not be any retrenchment in the NIPOST, “at least, for now”.
 
Victor Oluwadamilare, the minister’s spokesman  said: “We are not aware of that. Whoever told you may not be telling you the truth. A number of reforms will take place there but I don’t think the government is thinking of sacking any staff.”

In a similar vein, Mr Taye Olaniyi, the spokesman of NIPOST, said no worker would be sacked now.

Olaniyi, an assistant PMG in charge of public affairs, however, said that workers could be sacked later “because reform, in any workplace, may or may not involve retrenchment.”

[Nigeria Communications Week]