Published 30th Aug, 2023

By Sodeeq Atanda

Verity Rock Limited, an engineering, procurement and construction company operating in Nigeria, currently owes members of its technical workforce at the Dangote Petroleum Refinery located in Lekki, Lagos State, two months’ salaries.

On August 24, the affected workers staged an open protest in front of the company’s office inside the Dangote Refinery Complex at Lekki, according to one of the workers.

Before their current agitation, the workers had stayed away from work for more than a month owing to non-payment of their salaries for three months in the past.

Consequently, the company promised to pay them. To the workers’ dismay, however, the company only paid them one month worth of the owed salaries.

“We are helpless and frustrated. The company has always pushed us to the wall before paying us our salaries. Imagine the kinds of hard labour that we do, yet they are not prioritising our welfare by paying us timely,” one of the workers told FIJ on Tuesday.

A worker's workplace identity card. — A worker’s workplace identity card.

“They promised to pay our July and August salaries today (Tuesday). The day is almost gone now and we have not received any credit alert. If they don’t do that, we are determined to protest tomorrow.

“That has been their practice. Since I joined the company, our salaries have never come unless we protest. In our employment agreement, they promised to be paying us the salary of a preceding month on the 5th day of a new month, an agreement they have never complied with.”

In response to their August 24 protest, according to another source familiar with the matter, the company’s head of human resource video-called one of her bosses to relay the development to him.

The boss asked the HR officer to beam the camera on the protesters clearly in order to see their faces to know the vocal ones among them for a likely punishment.

“We expected the Indian man to understand our plight when we protested last week. Appallingly, he asked the HR who video-called him to show our faces in the camera so that he could see us clearly, probably to profile some of us for an unfavourable treatment,” the source said.

“I see this strategy of withholding what belongs to us rightfully as a way of impoverishing us. If you came to the site, you would see some of us struggling to take food leftovers of these employers. Is that a good life? We are not earning equally. And even at that, it is never adequate for the hard job we do.

“We have never received our salaries on time. We would have exhausted one salary and even purchased food on credit before another salary would be paid. We have always fought to get paid.”

Our source further explained that the management told them that the salary would be paid on August 29. Again, the company did not uphold its words.

Verity Rock did not pay the workers on Tuesday as promised. In the early hours of Wednesday, they converged again to press home their demand for their salary to be paid.

“JUSTICE MAY BE DELAYED, BUT NOT DENIED”

Managing Director. Source: Verity Rock's website. — Managing Director. Source: Verity Rock’s website.

FIJ called the company via a phone number available on its website on Wednesday. The responder, who identified as V.S. Tomar, the managing director, explained that justice may be delayed, but it will never be denied.

“We have a problem with our bank and we are trying to resolve it. It is not two months. How can you say it is two months when this month has not ended? They will get their money today or tomorrow. Justice may be delayed, but will never be denied,” said the responder.

He further said that the workers should go home today, saying, “They should not cause any wahala.”

When asked to respond to the workers’ claim that he asked the HR to put camera in their faces to know who to sack among them, the managing director said, “They have always been good workers. No one is to be sacked.”

According to the company’s website, Tomar is an Indian. Before becoming Verity Rock’s MD, he was Executive Director at Anwesha Engineering Projects Ltd, an Indian oil tanking limited.

“Can you tell me the names of those who came to you?” Tomar asked this reporter. FIJ declined.

Editor’s Note: Sources were kept anonymous to protect them from undeserved retribution.

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