MTN Nigeria has recalled over 90 per cent of sacked employees of Visafone sequel to its acquisition of the leading Coded Division Multiple Access (CDMA) network.
Authoritative sources at MTN and Visafone said that all disengaged staff, excluding drivers and office assistants, have now been recalled.
One of the recalled staff has confirmed that almost all the sacked staff have been reinstated and are now awaiting their new salary renumeration packages and work guidelines.
He added that asking them to leave and paying only three months salaries in lieu after their several years of restless service wasn’t good enough adding that when Visafone Communications came into Nigeria it was when the defunct Multi-Links and Starcoms were dominating the CDMA sector. It broke their monopoly and instantly became the fourth largest network in the country.
Our source said about 500 and not 2,000 as reported were involved because Visafone had laid off half of its workforce in 2013 and early 2015 in anticipation of the acquisition.
He said MTN did not want to take on liabilities initially until it realised that its technical crew could not understand the CDMA network, which it acquired because of its spectrum and that was why they were called back so that they can put them through.
Visafone was founded by Mr. Jim Ovia, who aimed to take CDMA network to another level but, it could not compete with its GSM counterparts that enjoyed governmental support always.
MTN taking over it was designed to boost the quality of voice and data services and to provide a sound internet ecosystem through Long Term Evolution (4G) as against the current 2/3G speed.
MTN Executive, Amina Oyagbola, in an official capacity, explained that the acquisition seeks to leverage resources for service enhancement, which is also a reflection of our concerted efforts to increase the growth and roll out of broadband services across the country in support of the National Broadband Plan for the benefit of Nigerians.
She said “We are committed to exploring avenues for meeting our customers’ increasing data needs in line with our vision ‘to lead the delivery of a bold new digital world to our customers’. As we work to maximise our data capabilities towards achieving broadband of international quality, our objective is to ensure that Nigerians experience a boost in the quality of broadband internet services translating to the much needed enhanced data speeds and value to enhance personal and business productivity.”
