Employment Scam Rocks Tecno, Dragged To Court

tecno

A former employee of Tecno Telecoms Limited has slammed a N350 million suit against the foreign owned mobile phone in Nigeria for unfair and discriminatory labour practices. Joined in the suit are three others.

They were alleged to have developed a system whereby unsuspecting Nigerians are allegedly interviewed by Tecno Telecoms Limited and where they are found suitable, an employment is secured but in the name of a shadow company, thus denying such employee any legal benefits from Tecno.

In the process filed by the affected staff I. I. Festus, he made an allegation of wrongful inducement and misrepresentation of facts, making him accept a job pretentiously from Tecno.

Joined as respondents in the suit filed before the Lagos division of the National Industrial Court, NIC, are Mr Ray Fang, Mr. Adebayo Adegboye (staffs of Tecno) and Total Data Limited, (allegedly used as shadow company in the scheme).

In the suit, the claimant is praying the court for a declaration that the defendants “are liable for the tort of deceit by representing facts which they knew were false to the claimant with the aim of inducing him to rely on same and to accept the offer of employment dated May 25, 2015 for the position of training manager with Tecno.”

Besides, the claimant is asking for a declaration that the defendants are liable for negligent misstatement for negligently representing inaccurate facts which induced him to accept the offer of employment given to him last year May.

He was therefore asking for exemplary damages and others in the sum of N350 million. The claimant who is represented by Pentagon Partners Legal Practitioners, narrated in his statement of claim how he was allegedly lured and persuaded by Tecno through one Mr. Ray Fang to resign from his previous employment and offered an employment as the training manager for Tecno in a letter dated May 25, 2015.

ALSO READ  Fidelity Bank Hands Over Suspects In Viral Video To Police

To buttress his arguments, the claimant narrated several meetings and exchange of communications between him and the management of Tecno including the second and third defendants, who are the head of the company’s business unit in Nigeria and its human resources manager respectively leading to his decision to work for Tecno.

However, he averred that he was surprised and worried when an employment letter was issued to him in a letter head paper from the 4th defendant, Total Data Limited, which he never had any discussion and agreement with, but was persuaded by the 2nd and 3rd defendants who simply said that 4th defendant is a recruiting agent for Tecno.

He further averred that to convince him of his employment as a staff of Tecno, he was issued an identification card bearing the name and logo of Tecno for which he worked between July 1st and September 16th, 2015.

The relationship between the parties started going sour however when he was orally informed by the 2nd and 3rd defendants that his salary was too high. The situation worsened on September 16th, 2015 when he received an electronic mail titled, “Service no longer required” from the 4th defendant, which was also supported by another mail from the head of business unit, indicating that his employment had been terminated.

ALSO READ  Stanbic IBTC Gives N34.8m In Scholarship to Successful UTME Students

Not comfortable with the situation, he claimed to have instructed his lawyer who wrote a letter dated October 6, 2015 to query Tecno on why his termination letter was coming from the 4th defendant which he never worked for and with whom he had no contractual dealings.

But to his surprise, there was a response from Tecno’s lawyer indicating that he was never employed by Tecno but Total Data Ltd.

He submitted that he had no contractual dealing with Total Data Limited but Tecno Telecoms limited, which negotiated his employment, ratified the deal and issued him an identification card.

He said: “I had planned to have a long career future with the 1st Defendant, a telecommunications company, but this has been cut short by the 4th (Total Ltd) and the claimant realizing that he was never a staff of the 1st Defendant (Tecno Telecoms Ltd).”

Mr. Festus argued that the entire act by Tecno Telecoms Ltd and the other defendants is nothing but employment racketeering meant to deceive unsuspecting Nigerians in search of their dream jobs as well as denying the country of necessary revenues accruing from employment of Nigerians and payment of requisite tax.

He claimed that due to the company’s policy, he “has no record of pension payment by the 1st and

4th defendants contrary to statutory requirements of Nigeria…., “and has no record of his taxes being regularly and dutifully paid” by the defendants to discharge his statutory obligations.

He also attached to his processes the CAC incorporation documents of Tecno Telecoms Limited which seem to portray the company as a “brief case” company.

ALSO READ  Our Commitment to Nigeria’s Entertainment Industry Still Intact—Heritage Bank

“For such a company with huge presence in Nigeria, the shareholders are “Guo Xinchao” and “Jiang Boyu” both of FLAT/RM 1302 13/F CRE building. 303 Hennessey Raod, Wanchai, Hong Kong, China. Investigations revealed that Tecno barely has any Nigerian staff as they have been lured into contracts with Total Data Ltd.”

Meanwhile, in their 47 paragraph statement of defence, the defendants asked the court to dismiss the case with cost.

According to them, “the contentions of the claimant are untrue”, maintaining that there was contractual relationship between the claimant and the Total Data Ltd, since it was the company that offered him employment as indicated in the employment letter dated May 25, 2015.

They stated that: “The letter of employment states that the 4th defendant was employing the claimant and not the 1st defendant. It was therefore the prerogative of the claimant to either accede or decline the offer of the 4th defendant as the claimant was not in any way contractually obliged to accede to the employment offer.”

They added that: “the use of recruitment agencies such as the 4th defendant (Total Data Ltd) “is a globally judicially noticed and accepted norm, and the claimant had the prerogative upon being offered employment by the 4th Defendant to decline same but chose to accept the offer and enjoy the benefits therein solely from the 4th defendant,” it added.

They noted, nothing has been done wrong by the defendants, except that the plaintiff is out to be mischievous.

Vanguard

Share This Post

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: