The Private Telecommunications and Communications Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PTECSSAN) has issued a three-day warning strike notice to Huawei Technologies Company Limited over alleged anti-labour practices.

Huawei is a global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices.

The PTECSSAN General Secretary, Okonu Abdullahi, in a letter addressed to the company, said the union has directed the withdrawal of services of its members from projects of the company effective between 12.00 a.m. May 2 and 11.59 p.m. May 4, 2023.

Abdullahi, in the letter made available to newsmen on Sunday, April 30, said the failure of the company to comply with the union’s demands after the warning strike would result in an indefinite strike.

He noted that the strike might cause telecommunications network disruptions as no worker would be available to attend to them.

The PTECSSAN official said: “We were constrained to embark on this industrial action when it became apparent to us that your company is not labour friendly and is not interested in peaceful and amicable resolutions of the concerns of our members.

“For the avoidance of doubt, we shall not be backing down on the warning strike except the following are agreed with the union.

“Immediate recognition of the fundamental right of the employees to freely associate with the union; immediate recognition of the union as negotiating body for the employees on workers welfare.

“Immediate remittance of membership dues into the union’s account as earlier provided; immediate payment of March salaries of some members of the union, among others.

“As we look forward to your company’s granting of our demands, please be assured of our union’s resolve to ensure better working conditions for her members.”

Other demands of the Telecommunications workers include the immediate regularisation of the employment of union members on the Huawei projects and the involvement of the union in the process.

Others are the immediate commencement of appropriate pensions deduction and remittance of same as required by the Pension Act.

“Immediate approval of the National Health Insurance Scheme that covers the employees, their spouses and four of their dependents.

“Immediate enrollment of Union members in the Group Life Insurance as stipulated in the Pension Reform Act 2004, Section 9(3).

“Immediate commencement of negotiation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (Conditions of Service) for the benefit of union members,” Abdullahi added.

Meanwhile, Huawei has yet to react to the latest development as of the time of filing this report.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) have taken their collaboration a bit further by setting up a Joint Committee of senior and management staff of the two agencies towards the implementation of inter-agency strategies for enhancing national revenues in the telecommunications sector.

The collaboration birthed the inauguration of 17-member committee by the NCC’s Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management, Adeleke Adewolu, on behalf of the Commission’s Executive Vice Chairman, Prof. Umar Danbatta, and the Executive Chairman of the FIRS, Mr. Muhammad Nami, at the NCC’s headquarters in Abuja.

The inauguration of the committee, comprising six officials of NCC and eleven officials of FIRS, was carried out with senior officials of NCC and those of the tax agency led by its Coordinating Director for Compliance Support Group, Dr. Dick Irri, who represented the FIRS’ Executive Chairman, Muhammad Nami at the event.

While inaugurating the Committee on behalf of the heads of the two agencies, Adewolu said the terms of reference of the Committee include: review the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the NCC and the FIRS on June 9, 2020; and carry out inter-agency interaction on the implementation of the NCC’s Revenue Assurance System (RAS), to ensure that it incorporates the needs of FIRS to the extent that RAS can remain the sole interface with telecom service providers’ networks vis-à-vis the Tax Authority’s information needs from the telecoms sector.

On his part, Dr. Dick Irri, who led the FIRS delegation, advised the Committee to take the assignments very seriously.
Irri said: “I would like to task you to take this assignment as a national matter as we expect the two agencies to work in harmony, collaborate effectively and have a warm handshake that will make this synergy between the two agencies a great example of collaboration between Federal Government agencies towards enhancing fiscal governance in Nigeria”.

The Nigerian Government has directed telecommunication companie in the country to bar all outgoing calls on unlinked lines from Monday, April 4, 2022.

Unlinked lines are Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMS) not yet registered and linked with the National Identification Number (NIN) by users.

The government’s directive was announced in a statement jointly signed on Monday by the Director of Public Affairs at the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Ikechukwu Adinde, and the Head of Corporate Communications at the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Mr Kayode Adegoke.

Over 125 million SIMs, according to the statement, have had their NINs submitted for linkage, verification, and authentication and NIMC has issued over 78 million unique NINs to date.

The government explained that NIN-SIM linkage had been extended on multiple occasions to allow Nigerians to freely comply with the policy.

It added that the enrolment for NIN was a continuous exercise as it was a precondition for service in telecommunication companies, banks, Nigerian Immigration Service, and several other government agencies.

According to the NCC, at least 72.8 million subscribers risk being disconnected from telecommunication services following the latest directive.

Data from the commission indicates that there are 197.8 million active telecom subscribers in Nigeria as of February 2022.