Media Trust In Disarray: We’re Not Deep Crisis, report false- Company

Management of Media Trust Limited, publisher of Daily Trust, Sunday Trust and the Hausa version: Aminiya have denied the report that have gone viral, has been thrown into deep crisis by an Indian national who was employed by a section of the company’s Board of Directors on a monthly salary of N5 Million, to head the business side of the company.

A director of the company who spoke under condition of anonymity said most of the allegations are nothing but false and handy work of some staff that was sacked for various offences.

According to the trending news, the Indian national (COO), instead of raising the income of the company for which he was employed and brought from India, has embarked on mass sack of the workers, even as the sales and general revenue of the company continue to drop on daily basis.

It was gathered that the first batch 40 workers were sacked in November, last year and second batch of 40 have been relieved of their job,  while another 46 have been penciled down for sack any moment from now.

It was gathered that at least, four members of the Board of Directors, including the former Managing Director/Chief Operating Officer, Alhaji Is’aq Ajibola, have resigned from the Board in protest against the huge salary being paid to the Indian national aside free accommodation, driver, vehicle and house helps without any justification.

It was learnt that the Indian national, supported by the Chairman of the company who brought him, Malam Kabiru Abdullahi Yusuf, has abolished the “thirteenth Month” salary, which the company used to pay to workers at the end of the financial year either in November or December.

This is in addition to reducing the retirement benefit from 10 year gross pay to just three years, besides casualising some of the workers.

It was that because of the frustrative policies that reduced workers to beggars, the company has been recording unusual number of sudden death, including the recent one involving one of the company’s longest serving reporters, Mr. Hir Joseph as well as two staff in audit department.

Information had it that already, bad blood is generating between the Indian national who is designated as Chief Operating Officer (COO), and the Editor-In-Chief, Mannir Dan Ali on one hand and on the other, between the COO and the personnel manager, Alhassan Yusuf, over the anti- workers’ policies which the Indian national has been churning out.

The frustrated workers, most of who are not sure if they would be pushed out of the company in the next mass sack, are grumbling but have no body to help them.

The chairman of the Board of Directors, Kabiru Yusuf had continually made it clear that any staff who is not comfortable with the company’s policies, is free to take his exit.

But in his reaction the director, who denied the mass sacked explained that due to the ongoing economic recession, every organisation who cannot afford its huge salary wage have to cut down its workforce to keep the company afloat, adding that, that was exactly what the company did.

“As a matter of fact, allowances of every staff including managers up to the directors have been stopped, including the Indian national who sacrificed salary cut. Though during the last meeting with the Chairman it was disclosed he (Chairman) has ordered that all staff allowances be restored.

On the issue that some board members were sidelined in the appointment of the Indian national, the director said it was not possible, adding that all members approved his appointment and per-took in the interview.

He, however, denied the report that the COO unilaterally sacks some staff, explaining that he (COO) has not vires to sack a single staff.