By Matthew Denis
Staff of Harmony Express popularly known as Kwara Express on Wednesday stormed corporate head office of Harmony Holdings Limited, along Taiwo road, Ilorin to protest alleged non remittance of deductions of employers’ contribution to the National Contributory Pension Scheme.
The protesters who were at company as early as 8am barricaded the office and prevent staff from resuming for the day’s job.
The protesters who bore placards with different inscriptions, demanded that Harmony Holdings Limited should hands off management of Harmony Express.
Speaking to Pilot Business on the development, the state Secretary of Almagamated Union of Public Corporation, Civil Service, Technical and Recreational Service Employees Workers’ Union, Harmony Express, Comrade Saliu Suleiman Otunba, said the protest became necessary given the insensitivity of the management of the company to their plights.
“The workers embarked on strike when the management failed to meet their demands last week Wednesday precisely, and decided to stage a protest at the head office of the company.
“The management of Harmony Holdings is owing workers of the Harmony Express N13 million being cooperative deductions from their salaries, and contributory pension deducted from the workers’ salaries, which is about N9.8 million and two and half percent of National Housing funds which has not been remitted for over two years now and running into about N7.7 million .
“Also, since Harmony Holdings took over the running of the transport fleet in 2015, there has been no promotion of staff. ” He explained that part of the demand by the protesting workers is the refund of N8.7m being amount earlier deposited for vehicles at Sterling Bank.
“The Kwara State government offset the balance of N95 million for the 43 vehicles loans taken from Sterling Bank.
“The N8.7 million initially deposited for the vehicles was returned to the account of Kwara Express by the state government, but Harmony Holdings accessed the money from our account without our knowledge and spent it.
“We have been demanding for refund of the money but they refused to return it despite the intervention of security agencies in the state.
“What we are saying now is that Harmony Holdings should return that N8.7 million to Kwara Express for us to clear part of the outstanding arrears. There is no going back on this industrial action until the money is refunded.
However, reacting to the allegations, the Head of Corporate Affairs Harmony Holdings, Tunde Abodunde said the issue would soon be resolved.
“We are meeting with the protesting workers on Friday to resolve their grievances.”
