ENL Consortium promises to pay off aggrieved dockworkers

ENL Consortium, operator in charge of Terminals C and D of the Lagos Port Complex (LPC) Apapa, says it is ready to pay off dockworkers that have chosen to quit their jobs.

According to a press statement signed by Uzamot Boye, the legal adviser of ENL Consortium, workers were issued with valid employment letters when they joined the company, which is contrary to claims in certain quarters that workers were employed without documentation.

“It must be on record that some dockworkers elected to leave the terminals by themselves. Those of them who want to continue working with us are currently at their job posts but the few that want to leave are free to do so,” Boye says.

Continuing, he states: “We have been meeting with the union and officials of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) to work out modalities for their payments, which we are ready to pay in full in consonance with the NJIC agreement.”

The ENL legal adviser, who accused the aggrieved dockworkers of causing disruptions and breaching the peace at the ports for no justifiable reasons, further advised the angry dockworkers to be patient and work with their leaders to enable them receive their full retirement benefits in line with negotiated agreements.

ENL Consortium, he said, has been a people-focused organisation that empowers its workers to enable them gives their best and the company’s executive vice chairman/CEO places the welfare of workers above every other consideration.

Dakuku Peterside, DG of NIMASA, who received dockworkers for being orderly and peaceful in their demands, said that since the agency regulates maritime labour practices in the country, it would do everything legal to ensure that their grievances are adequately addressed.

“A labourer is worthy of his rewards, in this regard we shall ensure that no dockworker in all the seaports in Nigeria is short changed,” the NIMASA DG said.

Peterside however, charged the dockworkers to continue to be law abiding while the agency tries to resolve the dispute through a tripartite meeting with the leadership of the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria, ENL management and NIMASA.

Uzoamaka Anagor-Ewuzie