Sacked Rivers Indigenes Ground PHED Operations …Demand Immediate Reinstatement

Members of the board of Greater Port Harcourt City Development Authority (GPHCDA) after their inauguration yesterday by Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike at Government House, Port Harcourt. Fourth from right is Chairman of the board, Chief F.N Alabraba while fourth left is the Authority’s Administrator, Ambassador Desmond Akawor

Disengaged staff of the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHED), yesterday, grounded operational activities at the corporate office of the company at Moscow Road, Port Harcourt, in protest against what they considered as “arbitrary and unilateral decision by the company to sack them”.
The disengaged staff, all Rivers indigenes, stormed the premises of the company in the early hours of the day, with placards of varying discriptions, such as, ‘PHED, stop enslavement of Rivers people’, ‘Stop slave labour in PHED’, ‘We are sacked for no just cause’, ‘RSG, save us from slave labour’, ‘Rivers indigenes are slaves in PHED’, among others.
According to the spokesman of the disengaged PHED workers, Mr. Atu Goteh, “the sack of the 30 staff came as a surprise to everybody, as we only resumed to work and were served with letters to the effect that our services were no longer required, without any reason given for the action”.
The sacked workers therefore, demanded their immediate re-instatement, and appealed to the Rivers State House of Assembly and the Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike, to investigate the activities of PHED, which they accused of implementating slave labour policies.
The spokesperson of the sacked workers recalled that the management of PHED recently held a meeting with some staff, and told them of plans to hand them over to a ‘third party’, if they agreed, but the staff objected to the plan.
According to him, “we were later redeployed from our original duty posts, as Distribution Sub-station operators, to work as marketers, and Energy theft detectors. We have already resumed at our new posting before we were issued disengagement letters”.
In his reaction, the Corporate Communications Manager of PHED, Mr. Jonah Ibomah, accepted that some workers were recently disengaged by the management of the company.
He, however, added that negotiations were ongoing between the disengaged staff and the company’s management on the way forward.

Taneh Beemene