Teddy Oscar, Abuja
The Managing Director of Mainstreet Bank, Faith Tuedor-Matthews, has been threatened with an arrest, if she fails to appear before the House of Representatives’ Committee on Banking and Currency on October 2.
Tuedor-Matthews, who failed to show up on Tuesday during the committee’s public hearing to throw more light on the sack of the bank’s 670 staff, sent a representative Anogue Anyanwu, a director at the bank, to the displeasure of the chairman of the committee, Hon (Sir) Jones Chukwudi Onyereri.
Tuedor-Matthews summon followed a petition by the disengaged workers’ of the bank to the House over the bank’s refusal to pay them their entitlements after they were disengaged.
In his reaction, Onyereri refused to hear out the defense Tuedor-Matthew’s representative was going to give on behalf of his boss.
He, however, decided to adjourn the hearing of the petition to October 2.
“We have invited the managing director of Mainstream Bank. We will postpone this meeting to October 2 to give her another opportunity to appear. If she fails to be here, we may seek the leave of the House to issue a bench warrant for her arrest,” he hinted.
In his submission to the members of the committee, Eyo Usanga, spokesmen of the sacked workers, said that the affected workers were unceremoniously disengaged on June 22, 2012.
Pointing that the bank has refused to pay them their full entitlements since then, Usanga disclosed that the struggle to have their entitlements paid has so far seen five of their dead.
“Some others have been going through harrowing experiences as a result of the letters of termination that were served on them instead of retirement letters,” he added.
He explained that they could not secure alternative employment since they were disengaged as no potential employer is comfortable engaging new employees that are armed with termination letters from their last employers.
“The impression people are getting anytime they see our termination letters is that we must have done something criminal or wrong to warrant our being issued with termination letters. We want this reversed to either retirement of resignation letters,” he pleaded.
