Tension is brewing in the Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO) over remuneration and promotion of less than five per cent of the employees, which is coming five years after privatization of the company.
KEDCO employees in their majority, who have been agitating for their promotion since 2017 lamented the exercise was based on mediocrity, sycophancy and subservience instead of on merit.
Also, they alleged the persistent absenteeism of the Managing Director, Dr Jamil Isyaku Gwamna as well as his unilateral style of leadership had cost the firm serious setback.
To this end, they stressed he should correct the anomaly, perpetrated by a few unscrupulous elements, who take advantage of Gwamna’s perpetual absence from office.
Sources, within the firm, while reviewing the recent promotion exercise, not only faulted the criteria used under Dr. Gwamna’s watch but described it as lopsided.
The top source, who expressed dissatisfaction of the employees, shortly after the consolation letters were distributed to them by the Administration Department, warned: “Before this company hits the rock, it is high time the Board monitored Gwamna’s reckless leadership style and engage some EDs to check his excesses, rather than give him free hand to continue to recruit and flood the company, with foreign consultants, who earn huge wages as salaries.”
Describing the consolation letters, as “controversial and demoralising”, the top source quoted a part of the letter as saying :“As you are one of the eligible employees, who did very well at the highly competitive promotion interview, the final decision was a difficult one, as management regrets to inform you that you have not been selected to be promoted to the next grade, due to limited number of vacancies.”
It was also alleged in 2017, staff salaries had been slashed by 40 percent, using some ridiculous approach of top down- sizing, whereby those at the top management levels, starting from the MD got lesser cut from their wages, while the middle-level and low-level staff had to contend with an alarming 40 percent cut.
Our source wondered why KEDCO MD always claims the company is the highest paying DISCO in the country, when the staff welfare was used as the last resort to temper with, each time the firm fails to meet up with its financial obligations.
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When contacted, the KEDCO spokesman, Mohammed Kandi, acknowledged the promotion exercise was overdue but described the alleged five percent promoted staff, as “nothing but concocted lies.”
According to him: “How on earth is this possible? How did they calculate the percentage? This is not true.”
Kandi, explained that employees’ promotion was an annual exercise, appealed to those did not benefit to work harder to earn theirs’ at the commencement of 2019 appraisal.
He urged staff of KEDCO to remain focused and not to be distracted by the fabricated stories of those, who pursuing personal vendetta.
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