Bedmate Furniture, no doubt, is one of the upscale furniture companies in Lagos, if not the whole of Nigeria. The company, which has been in existence for many years, has supplied various types of furniture to satisfy the needs of different categories of people as well as organization, little wonder then that a lot of people see the furniture company as a force to reckon with in furniture business in this part of the world.
Be that as it may however, if the intelligence reports dropping on our desk here are anything to go by, then law enforcement agents especially the Nigeria Police and the Nigeria Immigration Service must be ready to unravel a big mystery surrounding the story you are about to read now.
As the story goes, the management of Bedmate Furniture is said to be allegedly in the act of using ‘back door style’ of bringing in foreigners most especially from the eastern part of the world to come and work for them. They are said to smuggle these people in and make them start working without perfecting their documentation which will enable them to process and secure a valid work permit as being practiced in other parts of the world which is of course applicable in Nigeria.
We learnt that what these foreigners do for them basically is more of the casual site job than administrative so Bedmate Furniture believes that since they are not in constant touch with the public, they can continue working without a work permit and there is no cause for alarm.
It is of note here that had it been Bedmate Furniture went through the normal work permit procurement procedure, they will pay the foreigners more, thereby making the foreigners obliged to pay the Nigerian government tax but since they used the backdoor means, the management of the organisation pay the foreigners less and the foreigners in turn see no need to pay tax, an act which is generally referred to as tax evasion.
A source from their site located somewhere in Ogun state, where these foreigners work, hinted us that Bedmate Furniture management has a way of concealing the foreigners and shielding them from the prying eyes of the public right from when they leave their country up till when they arrive at their final destination here in Nigeria.
The source further explained that some law enforcement agents, acting on tip off, have busted the place about three times but Bedmate Furniture management, known for cutting corners, has a way of “resolving” issues with them and these foreigners continue their job. Even as we are reporting this, the foreigners are being said to have been provided with water tight security to ward off any intruder that may want to come in.
In a professional effort to balance our story, Global News magazine placed a telephone call across to the management of Bedmate Furniture to listen to their own side of the story. A lady who simply identified herself as Bridget attended to the call but asked our correspondent to call back and speak to someone else as according to her, ”everybody is busy at the moment”, after our correspondent had explained the reason for the call.
Our corresponded called back several times later but neither Bridget nor any other person picked up the phone. We didn’t stop there, our correspondent made another effort of sending an SMS, that wasn’t replied either up till we went to press.
Global News
