Railway workers fault alleged sales of scraps, outsourcing

 Workers of Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) have called for the suspension of alleged sales of iron scraps and outsourcing of recreational facilities.

  Under the aegis of Nigeria Union of Railway Workers (NUR)  and Senior Staff Association (SSA), the workers in a statement signed by Comrade Segun Esan (Secretary General, NUR) and Comrade Romanus Emezie (Secretary SSA, NRC Branch) threatened to embark on industrial action if the management of the Corporation “make good its plan as advertised in the media to entertain bidding from any quarter on the sales of iron scraps and outsourcing of the recreational facilities”.

 The statement read: “We will not allow any further plundering of the assets of the Corporation in the name of iron scraps disposal and outsourcing of the workers’ recreational club, staff canteens, railway institutes and club 1919 which has not brought anything meaningful to the Corporation”.

 “The last administration of Engr. Adeseyi Sijuwade did same, selling thousands of tons of ferrous and non-ferrous iron scraps and nobody knows where the proceeds ended up. We don’t know the modalities for the scraps disposal and everything looks shrouded up and known only to some cabal in the system. He attempted to outsource the recreational facilities and we saw this as irresponsible and we stopped it.  We will do it again”, Saidu Garba said

  The President SSA, Comrade Muhammed Yunusa said the scraps disposal has robbed the Corporation of its valuable assets in the past owing to poor supervision and implementation.

 He said: “It is important that caution is applied to this scraps disposal thing. We have asked the management of the Corporation to explain to us where it got authorization to sell those scraps already gone. We demand to know how the scraps disposal has fared in the last one year because we are surprised that some contractors are still coming to lift more scraps which, according to them, is to complete the allotted tons of scraps. To us, this is very preposterous and we want to know more.

 ‘’More importantly, we have expressed our position to the management that outsourcing the recreational facilities meant for the use and patronage of the workers is not the best way to improve the revenue profile of the Corporation. Revenue of the Corporation will improve if the federal government provides the Corporation with more locomotives, wagons and coaching facilities which the Corporation will utilize to step up its additive carriageability of goods and passengers which will rake in more revenue. This is why we are advising the management not to do any bidding as it has earlier advertised. We are prepared to resist that until reason prevails’’, Yunusa added.