MTN Denies Sacking 1,500 Workers

MTN Nigeria, Monday denied sacking some of its contract staff as reported in some national dailies recently. Some newspaper and online publications (not NE) alleged that MTN Nigeria had laid off some of its contract staff, particularly those that work at the telecommunications call centres. The reports claimed that many of the contract staff were given their disengagement letters Wednesday.

The reports also claimed that some of MTN workers in Apapa branch, had their salaries reduced from N120,000 to N40,000 a month and were asked to continue working at their Ibadan office, if they were still interested in the job. However, in a reaction, MTN said the reports were untrue. Responding to the reports, MTN Executive, Amina Oyagbola, said; “The reports are incorrect. The second phase of a change-in-vendor process took place last week, offering interested workers the opportunity to join the new call centres owned and operated by the vendor; ISON BPO. MTN signed an outsourcing contract with ISON BPO Limited in 2015, following a competitive bid process. Indeed, MTN’s call centre operations were outsourced to independent third party agencies since 2008, as part of continued efforts to improve the efficiency and quality of customer service delivery in MTN.

This is in line with global best practice for organisations in our industry.” Also, ISON Group CEO, Pravin Kumar said: “We have been managing MTN’s call centres since last year when the first phase of the transition was carried out, with the second phase taking place at this time. “We were pleased to have emerged as the new partner to deliver cost-effective solutions, adopting state-of-the-art technology that supports world-class customer service. The drive for efficient customer service delivery without compromising on quality within prevailing economic realities comes with structural adjustments and we work to balance this with the need to ensure the sustainability of our operations.

We have continued to engage with those who are interested in taking up the opportunity to work with ISON under agreed terms. At ISON, we remain committed to delivering outsourcing solutions to our clients that also provide thousands of job opportunities to members of the communities in which we operate”.