GWVSNL workers threaten to shut down NIMASA

Forum 11 months ago

GWVSNL workers threaten to shut down NIMASA

WORKERS of the Global West Vessel Specialist Nigeria Limited, GWVSNL, who are yet to receive their salaries/allowances since 2015 when the Federal Government surprisingly terminated the company’s 10-year contract with the Nigeria Maritime and Safety Agency, NIMASA, have threatened to put a lid on NIMASA offices nationwide.

President Muhammadu Buhari discontinued the NIMASA/GWVSNL debt recovery and maritime security contract, which was on No -Cure, No-Pay basis, four years after the agreement, in 2011, by the former President Goodluck Jonathan administration.

He acted on intelligence that ex-militant leader, Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, currently handling pipeline surveillance contract for the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, was behind the firm.

The government re- awarded the contract to a company owned by a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers state in 2016.

However, GWVSNL workers at a meeting, weekend, in Warri, Delta state, lamented that they had undergone inexplicable sufferings and deprivations in the hands of different Director- Generals of NIMASA, over the years.

Chairman of the Working Committee, Mr. Vincent Kemefa, and secretary, Mr Albert Brakoru, stated in a communique “The latest development between the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Muazu Jaji Sambo, and the Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Bashir Jamoh, prompted and awakened the aggrieved GWVSNL workers to decide to shut down NIMASA offices nationwide.”

“Early part of this month, April, NIMASA director-general agreed to pay GWVSNL workers, following the intervention of the Federal Ministry of Justice, and Attorney General of the Federation, who, through the Director, Citizens’ Rights Department, F.K. Kebu, convened a meeting on the release of trapped funds.

“The Ministry sent an invitation to the meeting, entitled ‘Re: Appeal for Intervention for Release of Trapped Funds’, dated June 2022, to the workers through our consultant, Crowther Okiakpe

“The outcome of the said meeting made the NIMASA director- general to yield to the pressure of the various interventionists to pay the GWVSNL workers without delay.

“Unfortunately, the Minister of Transportation, recently, invited the director general of NIMASA three consecutive times to discuss the way forward in order to pay the GWVSNL workers because he noticed a delay in the whole process. Sadly, the NIMASA director-general refused to honor all the invitations of the minister.

“Today, that singular act of the NIMASA director-general has caused provocation among the GWVSNL workers, coupled with the number of workers who had died because of hardship, and lack of medical attention. Most of us are presently homeless and living a frustrated and despairing life,” the workers added.

A human rights activist, Felix Okpe, who described the workers’ ordeal as pathetic, called on President Buhari “to come to the aid of GWVSNL workers and direct the NIMASA to pay the salary arrears, and all allowances accrued to them within the eight years.”

“The federal government and NIMASA can avert the planned shutdown of the NIMASA offices nationwide if they pay the workers without further delay,” he declared.