The parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, Meta, has allegedly relieved about 24 staff members at its Los Angeles office of their jobs.

The affected staff were accused of using their $25 (£19) meal credits to buy items such as toothpaste, laundry detergent, acne pad and wine glasses.

It was gathered that the dismissals followed an investigation that revealed the employees had been exploiting the system, including sending food home when they were not physically present at the office.

One of the terminated employees was an unnamed worker earning a $400,000 salary.

Another sacked employee anonymously shared on the messaging platform Blind, explaining how she and her colleagues maximized their dinner credits to buy other necessities when they could get food elsewhere.

The breach was discovered as part of the human resources procedure even though one of the workers admitted to it.

According to reports, employees who occasionally bent the rules received warnings but retained their positions.

Free meals have long been a benefit for employees of major tech firms like Meta, founded by Mark Zuckerberg.

Typically, staff at larger offices, including Meta’s Silicon Valley headquarters, enjoy complimentary meals from on-site canteens.

Employees at smaller locations receive daily food credits, redeemable through delivery services like UberEats and Grubhub, with allowances of $20 for breakfast, $25 for lunch and $25 for dinner.

Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc, a Nigerian diversified agribusiness company, has announced plans to invest $1 billion over the next four years to expand its facilities and restructure the company.

Chairman John Coumantaros, in an interview on Tuesday, said the new funding is about “doubling down on investment in Nigeria.”

This investment will further support President Tinubu’s reform efforts at a time when companies like Diageo Plc and Unilever Plc are exiting or reducing their exposure to the West African nation.

Since coming to power in May 2023, President Tinubu has introduced a series of reforms from allowing the naira to free float to fuel subsidy removal to make the country more attractive to investors and steer it away from fiscal collapse.

According to Coumantaros, $500 million of the total investment will go into its sugar operations in Niger state to boost production from the current 100,000 tons to over 400,000 tons a year.

An additional $100 million will be allocated to a cassava-processing factory to end imports of starch from the tuber and expand its breakfast cereal offerings.

The 64-year-old company will also undergo reorganization following an offer from Excelsior Shipping Company Ltd. last month to buy out minority shareholders at 70 naira per share.

The company plans to restructure its more than 22 units into five individual companies, Coumantaros said.

“We want to be able to attract technical and financial partners to help us grow our sugar operations and food business. We have a lot of ambitious plans for investment and expansion.”

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has again disappointed Nigerians over the functionality of the country’s refinery in Port-Harcourt, Rivers State.

The Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPC, Mele Kyari, had in July, this year, stated categorically that the refinery would come into operation in early August.

Kyari’s announcement made it the seventh time the petroleum company would promise Nigerians that the Port-Harcourt Refinery would restart operations.

But the company has not been able to fulfill any of its assurances as at the time of this report, even as the challenges of fuel availability facing Nigeria bite harder.

The NNPC CEO had earlier promised that the refineries would be functional before the end of former president Muhammadu Buhari’s administration in May 2023.

The most recent date was promised by the Chief Financial Officer of the NNPC, Umar Ajiya, who said the Port Harcourt refinery would commence operations in September 2024.

In a recent reply to an enquiry by legal luminary, Femi Falana, SAN, it was noted that the contractor overseeing the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt refinery, said it would provide details on the project’s completion by or before October 2.

The contractor conveyed this through a law firm, Olajide Oyewole LLP, in response to a letter from a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, who had inquired about the completion timeline for the refinery’s rehabilitation.

Falana had written to them on September 17 and 24, respectively regarding the contract with the NNPC.

Kyari had informed the Senate recently when he appeared before the red chamber that Nigeria would be a net exporter of petroleum products by the end of the year.

He had informed the lawmakers that it was impossible to have the Kaduna refinery come into operation before December and that it would get to December. He had said similar things of both Warri and Kaduna Refineries.

According to him, Port Harcourt would commence production in early August this year.