- Says no Arik Air NUATE Branch member present at conference
A group within the confines of Arik Air, Concerned Aviation Employees has reacted to a press conference organised by the National Union of Air Transport Employees ( NUATE) describing their wading into the ongoing situation at the airline as
This is just as they lambasted the labour union for starting and ending a press conference without the Arik Air, NUATE members sitting with them which calls to question whose interest the union really serves and or represents.
The group further accused the labour union leader of magnifying its ignorance of the situation on ground and doing such a disservice to the labor movement with misinformation and falsehoods about the Arik Air and the AMCON receivership situation.
According to an open letter directed to the Secretary General of NUATE, Ocheme Aba, the employees accused him of calling for a truce and accountability between alleged warring parties but asked if there can be accountability without records or justice without equity and fairness?
“Rather than respect the place of the courts in arbitration and conflict resolution as enshrined in the Nigerian constitution, you called for truce where there is no fight, you called for accountability without records, Can there be justice without equity and fairness?
“The so called Arik receivership as it has increasingly been revealed to the world now was not founded on any default of any loan but a grabbing scheme engineered by misinformation laced with unintelligent use of law.
“Mr Aba, you should be ashamed that you are now the mouthpiece of the receivership the that cannot file audited accounts of 6 years , that the receiver manager that flagrantly disobeyed the orders of the court uses you as a mouthpiece is an insult to the labor movement, This surrogacy inspired by stomach infrastructure and misinformation is an insult on Nigerians.
“Otherwise, that you use the labor platform to promote an affront on the rule of law begs reasonableness.
On figures reeled out by NUATE, the employees countered them all stating:
“That you stated the valuation of Arik at N80b and the so-called indebtedness at N180bn begs common sense. How much do you think those 20 new generation aircraft are worth? In addition, there are verifiable public records about the valuation of Arik Air by the Delloite of London in 2016 which placed it at $3.7B. By simple arithmetic the debt-to-equity ratio places the so-called indebtedness at far below 3%. How can such a company be insolvent?”
“Would you have forgotten sir, that paying salaries is not the only thing that makes a company, sustainable growth is a sine qua non for the collective benefit of all stakeholders – the owners, employees, customers and the government.
“It is so embarrassing that you failed to answer basic questions about the company and its purported receivership with other matters arising during the question-and-answer session at your world press conference. You unfortunately magnified your ignorance to such a global proportion and ended up doing an even greater disservice to your paymasters.”
