Reps order reinstatement of 41 sacked

The House of Representatives Committee on Legislative Compliance on Tuesday ordered the management of Mainstreet Bank Limited to re-absorb the 41 employees of former Afribank Plc, who were sacked in 2002.

The committee, which has the responsibility of enforcing all House resolutions, said the directive should be complied with within one week.

The committee, which is headed by Mr. Monruf Akindero-Fatai, had summoned the management of the bank to appear before it on Tuesday following its failure to comply with the House resolution on the matter.

After the meeting, the committee resolved that due process was not applied in the sacking of the 41 staff of former Afribank Plc, now Maintreet Bank.

The committee said, “This is more so when the offence of the workers was that they expressed fear over the way the bank was being run.

“They saw that Afribank would be run down if nothing was done to stop the management. You will agree that what they feared eventually happened; the bank went down, yet they were sacked.

“The position of the House is that they must be re-absorbed; this you will do and report back to us within one week.”

Afribank was one of the five sick banks the government bailed out in 2011 with over N620bn of tax payers’ money, using the Central Bank of Nigeria.

It was renamed Mainstreet Bank Limited and issued a new licence by the CBN, thus becoming 100 per cent government property.

The Managing director/CEO of Mainstreet Bank Limited, Mrs. Faith Tuedor-Mathews, did not attend Tuesday’s meeting with the committee.

But, the Head of Abuja office of the bank, Mr. Dauda Mommoh, who led a team to the meeting, claimed that he had the mandate of the management to represent the MD/CEO.

Mommoh had told the committee that Mainstreet Bank did not reinstate the 41 employees because the liabilities it inherited from Afribank did not include any matter relating to the former staff members.

“The issues before us are very clear and we can’t take up any liabilities beyond what is specified in the terms of agreement,” he stated.

The committee recalled that Mainstreet Bank had tried to stop the House from intervening in the issue by rushing to seek a court injunction, but “failed, as the court did not grant their request.”

Akindero-fatai directed that the MD/CEO, (Tuedor-Mathews), should personally report to the committee within one week to give a progress report on compliance with its directive.