Dangote Says More Jobs to Be Created Despite Laying Off Over 3,000 Staff

After Sacking Over 3,000 Staff, Dangote Says More Jobs to be Created

Aliko Dangote, the President of Dangote Group, has said despite the challenges facing global economy, especially Africa, Dangote Group will continue to create new jobs.

Aliko Dangote, who spoke at the company’s 11th Annual General Meeting in Lagos, said Dangote Group has created over 54,000 jobs in four African nations where it operates. He listed the countries as South Africa, Ethiopia, Senegal and Nigeria, the company’s largest operation.

He said “According to our 2019 socioeconomic impact assessment study specifically on our operations in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Senegal, and South Africa, we sustained 54,005 jobs (direct, indirect, induced) in these four markets in the year under review.”

This was a week before Dangote Cement reportedly laid off over 3,000 staff on June 17 with a plan to return over 80 percent of its staff back to labour market.

According to a SaharaReporters report, the company has so far let go about 4,000 out of its 6,000 drivers.

An anonymous source said to be familiar with the situation said the company used staff throughout the COVID-19 stay at home order despite strict lockdown instruction. However, instead of promotion or compensation for putting their lives on the line, they were sacked.

He said “At the beginning of the year, they did an appraisal, it was supposed to be for a promotion and then the pandemic struck.

“When the pandemic struck, people were thinking that is when he will sack people but nothing like that happened as a matter of fact, the people that they have compulsory leave because of the pandemic were ordered back after just five days.

“Everyone was recalled back to work despite the lockdown and at that time they were pushing out trucks of cement around 500 to 600 every day.

“People were working overtime because it is owned by Dangote, his trucks were exempted from COVID-19 restrictions, so they forced people to work overtime like 12 yours everyday morning and night. The country was beginning to reopen little by little and then the next thing was sack,” he said.

Another victim of the mass sack said he was working as usual when he was called and compelled to sign a termination letter without prior warning.

He said, “As I speak to you, more than 3,000 people are being sacked. You will be at your duty post and they will call you and give you a letter, nobody knew, no prior notice.

“As a matter of fact, after the appraisal at the start of the year, many of us were given recommendations to be promoted to manager and other positions within the organisation.

“I was at my duty post, I got a call from the admin and when I got there, they gave me a letter and said I should sign the original collected by me, you cannot argue with anybody.

“As a matter of fact, the Head of Materials and Maintenance, Engr Basil, he has only nine people in his unit. He force them to cover the whole of the facility because they have to create evaluations for materials and make reservations for maintenance so when was asked to submit the names of nine people in his department to sack, when he refused explaining to upper management that he was already understaffed and taking out anyone will make the work to suffer. They gave him an ultimatum of 24 hours to submit names from his team for sack and when he refused to do it after it elapsed, he was sacked along with his team.”