Pensioners, NRC Workers Brouhaha

BY ALPHONSUS EFFI

The railway retirees caution their management, and unions against exclusion from the sale of staff quarters.
The Association of Nigeria Railway Senior Citizens (ANRSC), has indicted two in-house unions, of the organisation against scheming them out of the allocation of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) quarters.
This was emphasised in a statement signed by its Public Relations Officer, Festus Okorie, on Tuesday in Lagos.
The scheming unions are the (NUR and SSA) Nigeria Union of Railway and the Senior Staff Association of the institution respectively. Mr Okorie alleged that the SSA and NUR worked with the management of NRC to sell the staff quarters to themselves. He enthused that the plan is to shut the retirees out of the ongoing discussion to arrive at recommendations that would be made by the Minister of Transportation, Mu’azu Sambo.
He reiterated that any member of NUR/SSA, Railway staff and Management, making representation to the Minister or Ministerial Committee on Monetisation, to recover the staff quarters for allocation to themselves and serving staff was not only selfish but wicked cum, an embodiment of corrupt practice. He enthused that, the leadership of the unions was aware that many retired serving staff were displaced from the Ebute-Meta junction and Ikeja quarters.
This was to allow for construction work in the Railways with the promise to relocate them to new replacement quarters at Tejuosho and Agege. These new quarters are funded under the China Civil Engineering Construction Company contract and by the Lagos State Government, he claimed. The SSA and NUR are aware that the Railway management has failed to allocate the quarters, partly because they do not want to breach the government policy on monetisation. ANRSC, members who are also beneficiaries of the monetization policy in Railway, demand the house already built for displaced members should be allocated to them as agreed in conformity to the aforementioned policy.

The PR Manager of the ANRSC (Mr Okorie) urged the unions to shelve plans to sell the houses to themselves and their principals to pay retirees pittance with proceeds as settlement. According to him, “we have been on this struggle for what belongs to us for decades and won our case before some of the current staff joined the corporation to serve or become union executives, way back 2004–date”
Furthermore, he proclaimed that any recommendation of the committee that does not include the Federal government’s extant rules on the monetisation of staff quarters and the interest of ANRSC members, which emphasised the occupants of the quarters as first beneficiaries from the year the circular/policy was promulgated by the PDP regime under President Olusegun Obasanjo in the year 2004/2005. This leaves almost 80% of the NRC workforce then, who were still in service and currently occupying these quarters, as “First beneficiaries”, the authentic claimants to the policy and must be respected by the two in-house unions SSA/NUR, likewise the current management. Anything outside this arrangement, he echoed will not be accepted.
Conversely, the current President of the SSA, Mr Marcel Okeke as alleged, told the News Agency of Nigeria that many of the claims of the ANRSC were fallacy.
According to him, the unions have the interest of the ANRSC members at heart as the monetization process is concerned. He enthused, that in 2011, NUR/SSA was at the National Industrial Court with the management of NRC, but later opted to settle the housing issue out of court. When the matter started, he opined, the NUR/SSA were the unions representing the welfare of workers in the Railway Corporation. We are also serving and representing the interest and welfare of retirees. He posited further, that a 10-man working committee by the minister was to find a workable solution to the housing problem. He advised the affected staff retirees to present letters of allocation for the committee to know the number of persons entitled to the quarters.
Suffice to note at this juncture, that it is reckoned by the large majority of the observers, including analysts, that amongst all the parastatals/ministries of the federal government institutions, affected by this monetisation policy/circular, it is only the Nigerian Railway Corporation that is yet to implement the policy, according to extant rules promulgated in the circular, due to lingering court cases and unnecessary intrigues to date, likewise, current brouhaha on implementation as at press-time.