The events of this week have been difficult and disruptive. However, this has in no way impacted our continued commitment to our people, our customers and this great nation. All of us at MTN want to express our sincere gratitude to you for standing by us during this challenging time.
Connectivity plays a crucial role in your ability to run businesses, stay connected to family and attend to daily priorities. We understand this and assure you that we will continue to work hard to give you the uninterrupted service you deserve.
We also want to take this opportunity to unequivocally address certain false allegations that have been made concerning the working conditions in our company.
We consider the rights of all our employees to be paramount and have consistently ensured that these rights are protected. This includes the fundamental human right to freedom of association as enshrined in the Nigerian constitution.
Our ethos is not to coerce our employees to do anything against their will. We have no objections to our employees forming a collective, through a union, or choosing not to do so. In fact, MTN has an Employee Council made up of officers below Management cadre. Council members are democratically-elected representatives who ensure that labour-related issues are addressed.
We do not engage in casualisation. All our employees have full-time employment contracts. To enable our organisation to focus on delivering our core services and in alignment with global best practice, we engage licensed specialised service providers to support our operations.
We provide working conditions in line with international best practice. All employees earn well above minimum wage. They have access to a minimum of 20 paid leave days annually; flexible working hours; four months paid maternity leave; fully funded pensions; staff buses; mortgage subsidies and group medical cover with international emergency evacuation for employees and their immediate dependents. These are just some of the benefits that contribute to making MTN a great place to work.
Over the years, we have engaged productively with representatives of Labour Unions who reached out, holding numerous extensive meetings. We will continue to do so, pursuing amicable resolutions in our negotiations with organised labour.
The safety and welfare of our employees will remain our primary concern during these discussions. Given ongoing interventions by various stakeholders – ALTON, ATCON, NCC and the security agencies, we trust that there will be no further protests, aggression, attacks on our employees or damage to the network and property. Most of all, we expect that our employees’ rights to associate freely and without coercion will be respected.