Five former staff members of the Carriage Concepts Communications Limited Company, publisher of the now defunct News Star Newspaper, have dragged the management of the company before the National Industrial Court in Ikoyi. They are hoping the court will compel the company to settle months of unpaid salaries running into millions of naira.
Five former staff members of the Carriage Concepts Communications Limited Company, publisher of the now defunct News Star Newspaper, have dragged the management of the company before the National Industrial Court in Ikoyi. They are hoping the court will compel the company to settle months of unpaid salaries running into millions of naira.
They are praying the court to mandate the management of the defunct newspaper headed by Mr. Akin Ogungbe to pay each of the claimants unremitted pension contribution to their pension administrator throughout their service in the company as well as tax deductions from their salaries.
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The affected former staffers include Adeyemi Adebanjo; Azeez Folorunso; Ayodeji Adedara; Onyeama Nnamdi, and Nwakpa Jude. In their statement of fact signed by Barrister Omolade Idowu-Kuola, from the Bamidele Aturu & Co Chambers, they allege that the deducted tax by the publishing house was not remitted to the Lagos State Inland Revenue Service.
The claimants are seeking an order mandating the Carriage Concepts Communications Company to pay the amount of money stated against each of them. Their names being connected to respective tax arrears of their salaries being owed to them by the defendants.
The claimants are also seeking an order of court “mandating” the defendants to pay back to them, respectively, all the monies deducted as pension contributions, and tax fees that have not been remitted to any pension fund administrator for the claimants’ benefit, or to the Lagos State Inland Revenue Service.
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“A declaration that the first claimant is entitled to the sum of N100, 000 (One hundred thousand naira only,) being and representing the annual leave allowance which accrued to him during the period of his employment, with the first defendant and that the refusal by the first defendant to pay the first claimant his leave allowance is wrongful, illegal null and void” part of their court papers read.
Similarly they are also seeking an order mandating the defendants to pay them the sum of N5 million only as cost of legal fees, and an interest at the rate of 21% per annum from the date of the suit, until a judgment is delivered, and thereafter, interest at the rate of 10% per annum until the judgment sum is liquidated.
However in their joint statement of defense, Carriage Concepts Communications Limited, and Mr. Akin Ogungbe, countered that contrary to the position of the claimants, the company prior to the issuance of the directive placing them on compulsory leave, it consistently sustained huge financial losses, running into hundreds of millions of naira as a result of stiff competition from existing publications, and poor sales to the knowledge of the former employees.
The statement of defense dated on the 19th March, and signed by their counsel, Oladosu Ogunniyi, of Oladosu Ogunniyi & Company, insisted that contrary to the position of the claimants, it could not have communicated with them until this date. The company is still unable to meet up with the desired re-strategizing / repositioning of the newspaper publication, as a result of a combination of a series of extenuating factors, the newspaper’s lawyer wrote, including, but not limited to, the lack of interested investors, as well as inaccessibility of a large capital investment required to revive the publication.
The defendants connected with Carriage Concepts Communications also denied owing all the claimants three and half month salary in arrears across the board.
A further hearing in this suit has been adjourned until the 22nd of May, 2014.
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