TheCable

Mobil Producing Nigeria (MPN), a subsidiary of ExxonMobil corporation, has denied reports that it embarked on a gale of fresh retrenchment exercise where 89 workers were sacked.

Quoting a source, NAN had said 60 regular workers and 29 contract workers were affected in the latest retrenchment.

The agency said those affected were mainly workers at the company’s Qua Iboe terminal, adding that more workers may be laid off in the next two months.

But Ogechukwu Udeagha, manager, media and communications at ExxonMobil, told THISDAY that no such fresh retrenchment was carried out.

“I can confirm that there is no truth whatsoever to that claim,” Udeagha reportedly said.

The newspaper said a top official of the company also denied any fresh sack of 89 workers.

The official said the reports were a rehearsal of the last retrenchment that occurred in December, explaining that there was no way the company would have embarked on a fresh retrenchment when it had not resolved the last one.

“To the best of my knowledge, the company has not embarked on a fresh exercise after the minister of state for petroleum, Dr. Emmanuel Kachikwu, intervened in the December 2016 retrenchment exercise,” the official was quoted as saying.

“The minister is still in the process of resolving that one. So, there is no way the company can initiate a new exercise.

“If you read the new report, they said that the company had paid the 89 workers all their entitlements running into millions of naira. That statement is a confirmation that what they are referring to was last year’s exercise.

“If the company had embarked on fresh exercise, there is no way the process of working out their entitlements would have been concluded. Payments of entitlements take a longer period. So, they just rehearsed an old story.”

THISDAY said Francis Johnson, national president of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), did not respond to calls on his mobile phone to confirm or deny the new development.