• Labour threatens showdown
Just for the money, immigration officials are allegedly colluding with Indians who live off the sweat of fellow Nigerians under degrading work conditions, in disregard of expatriate quota and local content laws.
In India, the law does not allow a foreigner to sell certain items on the streets.
In China, a foreigner cannot set up certain companies, especially those that compete with indigenous industry.
The law works in these and other countries because it is enforced.
But in Africa’s most populous country and largest economy, Indians, Chinese, and other foreign nationals make it big, unchallenged, in lawful and unlawful enterprises.
In Jotna Nigeria Limited (JNL), the manufacturers of Lacasera based in Lagos, the Indian owners and employees alike make a lot of naira from the fruit juice and other ventures in the company’s subsidiaries.
They take frequent holidays to travel and repatriate money to New Delhi, Bombay, and other industrial clusters to grow the economy of their South East Asian nation, after fending for relatives and friends.
This is beside the allegation that JNL discharges sewage into public drainage channel, a health hazard to everyone.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) says it has had enough.
JNL is on a collision course with Labour which has threatened to shut it down over alleged abuse of expatriate quota, violation of the Local Content Act, and other laws.
Workers’ outcry has made the board of directors of JNL to fire the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Ramchandani Sushil.
Tola Bademosi, Chairman of BD Consults, public relations managers of the firm, confirmed that “it is true Sushil has been demoted, but it has not been made official.
“I cannot confirm to you yet who the next MD is. I can only tell you that there is a new MD to take over from Sushil.”
Declining fortunes
Company fortunes have been on the decline since Sushil arrived and introduced dehumanising labour practices that constantly pitch Nigerian employees against the management.
On August 11, the NLC threatened to shut down the company if the management fails to unionise the workers immediately. The management held a meeting the following day to find ways of getting out of trouble.
Declining profit got worse after a key production and distribution employee humiliated out of JNL went on to join the Nigeria Bottling Company (NBC), bottlers of Coca-Cola, where he replicated JNL flagship brand, Lacasera.
The debut of Fanta Apple produced by NBC set the stage for a keen competition that has taken a huge percentage of the market share of Lacasera.
NBC used its wide network of customers to corner up the market for Fanta Apple. Jotna is struggling for survival, and the management turned the heat on workers.
Employment racket
Investigation by TheNiche uncovered a well organised employment racket by JNL in disregard of the expatriate quota law, and local content, coupled with tax evasion by tens of subsidiaries of the parent company.
JNL has over 10 subsidiaries, including Kogi United, Victory Nigeria, LMH, PCL, TLCL, and CBTI.
It was alleged that the subsidiary companies evade tax payment to the government as they hide under the parent company to do genuine business but stand alone in carrying out shady business.
Investigation showed that Indians occupy positions of responsibility, from MD/CEO to personal assistant.
Young school leavers are brought into the country straight from school to head their Nigerian counterparts.
Documents obtained by TheNiche showed that JNL brings in a large number of Indians to occupy positions both in the parent company and the subsidiaries even where competent Nigerians are available.
The company creates high-sounding positions to justify granting expatriate quota to Indian nationals who are brought in as personal assistants, accountants, business development executives, tax managers, human resource managers, insurance managers, and a host of others.
In some cases, expatriate quota approvals were given in anticipation of positions that never existed, implying complicity with officials of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS).
Sadhu Charan, an Indian, was given residence permit based on the expatriate quota approval as Performance Manager on June 27, 2012. But he ended up as Human Resource Manager, a post there are many Nigerians to fill.
His residence permit (AO248585) expired on June 26, 2015, and Immigration officials allegedly renewed it without due process.
Ramchandani Rajesh (residence permit AO223158) was granted visa as Head, System Support Manager, but ended up as Information Technology (IT) Head, a job several Nigerians are qualified to do.
His expatriate quota was renewed on January 24, 2014 (through application letter MIA/B27014/11/201) to expire on January 23, 2016.
Expatriate quota approval for Taxation Manager (Subudhi Kumar), Management Accounts Manager (Mangesh Manikpure), and many others whose details are also available to TheNiche showed a serial abuse of expatriate quota and local content laws.
In some cases, expatriate quota approvals were given for positions that never existed in the company.
Connivance with Immigration
JNL runs foul of these laws with the connivance of Immigration officials in the Ikoyi, Lagos office, whose names are withheld by us.
While Indians occupy positions of responsibility, Nigerians are consigned to low profile jobs and are constantly harassed by the Human Resource Manager, Yatendra Jain.
Workers petition
Indians enjoy the best of work conditions, but Nigerians are subjected to oppressive labour policies and often get sacked under questionable circumstances.
The termination of the appointment of Monday Okorafor, who was allegedly deceived into accepting his sack letter; and the driver attached to Jain; and the sudden withdrawal of allowances of some Nigerians; attracted widespread condemnation.
The driver attached to Jain was sacked after driving him home from the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos.
On that fateful Sunday, he had gone back home when Jain called him to return and take his wife to the market. His inability to do so earned him a sack without pay the next day.
This infuriated other drivers who were already complaining about the sudden withdrawal of their allowances by Jain.
The drivers protested and refused to work. They blocked entry and exit points at the company’s premises until the policy was reversed.
It is alleged that Okorafor was constantly harassed by Jain before he was finally sacked.
The management offered to pay him N500,000 to coax him to accept his sack letter. He was paid N300,000 and told to collect the balance a day after.
But he was never paid the remaining N200,000.
The workers’ petitions obtained by TheNiche painted a graphic detail of oppressive labour policies against Nigerians, and urged the authorities to investigate the operations of JNL subsidiaries.
The petitioners, who did not disclose their names for fear of sack, alleged that
• The subsidiary companies do not have offices.
• Indian workers travel back to their country at will to attend to domestic issues and repatriate huge sums of money from Nigeria through laundery.
• Nigerians are denied annual leave without payment of allowance in lieu.
Unlawful waste disposal
Workers also alleged that the company empties human waste drainage pipes into the public drainage system without treatment, posing health and environmental risks in violation of the Lagos State Environmental Protection Act.
It was learnt that JNL claimed to have the authority of the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA) to channel human waste to the gutters.
Silence everywhere
Sushil shunned all efforts to get him to comment on the allegations. When the board of directors learnt that the allegations were leaked to the press, it quickly demoted him, then got rid of him altogether.
When the former NIS Public Relations Officer, Chukwuma Obuah, was contacted, he did not answer calls to his telephone line.
And he did not respond to a text message sent over a month ago.
Also, the new NIS spokesman, Ekpedeme King, neither answered telephone calls to his line nor responded to text messages sent to him at the weekend.
Abeshi threatens
Meanwhile, Abeshi has threatened to sack any NIS personnel found to have compromised their jobs.
He issued the threat when he addressed his officers and men in Lagos on Thursday, September 10.