By Mustapha Sesay
Fuel dealers operating under Total Petroleum Company Sierra Leone have rejected documents including pay vouchers submitted by the company to the parliamentary oversight committee on labor.
The dealers, about half a dozen of them, said the voucher submitted by the company did not reflect the reality on the ground.
Parliament had requested from the company details of payment for all its workers, including those under their agents, also called dealers. The dealers, who were before the committee to answer questions regarding the minimum wage, based on what was submitted to the committee, also presented payment vouchers that were completely in variance with what Total`s Network Manager Ishmael Conteh had submitted earlier.
One of the dealers, Wordsworth Cole of Mangobrown Total filing station told the committee that all his staff members were paid in compliance with the new minimum wage that came into effect in January. He showed the MPs his payment voucher indicating NASSIT numbers to back up his claim.
Another dealer, a Guinean, told the committee that when he came into the country it was the management of Total which gave him the list of names as his employees, together with the prescribed salary for the workers.
After these revelations, one of the committee members, Sow Sawyer, noted that it was clear that the information submitted to them by Total was false and misleading. Thus, he added, it had derailed them from doing their job.
The deputy chairman of the committee, Dauda Kallon, supported Sawyer`s position, noting that as committee they were interested in protecting the country`s laws and, in this case, ensure that employees were adequately served.
Total`s Network Manager, Conteh, acknowledged the discrepancy in the documents they submitted and said their action was not deliberate as conceived by the MPs. He assured that his company was not in any way trying to mislead the committee.
Total`s Finance Manager, Mohamed Kallon, also apologized to the committee, and promised that the company would ensure that all employment laws were adhered to in their operations in the country.
Also appearing before the committee on Wednesday were representatives from the National Petroleum (NP), whose Retail Sale Manager, Senesis Kanneh, said 100% of the company`s work force were Sierra Leoneans. He informed the MPs that they had 33 dealers operating under NP.
According to documents presented to the committee, it was apparent that all the NP dealers’ salary scale were in conformity with the minimum wage, except for those dealers, who were mainly operating in the provinces, who failed to submit such document to the committee.
© Politico 28/05/15
