ZTE Nigeria, subsidiary of ZTE corporation, an Information Communication Technology (ICT) solutions and service provider has expressed its commitment to continue investing in Nigeria by developing and significantly increasing local human capital despite recent backs for the company such as threats by labour unions, company downsizing and especially the country’s economic downturn.
Yawei Yang, Head of Administration, ZTE Nigeria said the company was executing a number of projects including the National project for government and telecommunications projects for telecom operators in Nigeria.
“We recognise the economic situation in Nigeria but we are going to maintain our high standard in terms of service delivery and our commitment to good welfare packages for our staff.
We are among the few telecom companies that allow all our staff to unionise, we have generous welfare packages that include trainings and sundry allowances even including mobile phone allowance because of our belief in the development of the local workforce”, Yang said.
Clearing the air of insinuations that the company has a bad labour profile, Yang said; “ we have not outsourced any of our operations outside Nigeria as some telecoms firms are currently doing to cut costs. Only 17 per cent of our entire workforce are foreigners and we have always operated within the ambit of the Extant Immigration laws and Regulations of Nigeria 2015 and all other administrative directives.”
On allegation of whether the company recently flouted expatriate quota limits, Yang explained that “it is true that our ZTE China staff routinely visit Nigeria on Business Visa as support group for discussions with telecommunication operators to enable us have good business prospects leading to signing of agreement which unfortunately has not been successful since 2014.
“It is the practice and this is for most foreign companies operating in Nigeria that those coming for such business discussions come with Business Visas because that is just for short visit and it is allowed under the law. They only come around when we have some business discussions and then travel out of Nigeria within a short time. The law is there for all to see”, she said.
Yang who maintained that ZTE have always been above board with all laws including those relating to taxes and pensions however, regretted that the downturn of the nation’s economy has adversely affected the telecom industry which she said unfortunately led to the redundancy of some Nigerian and Chinese staff.
“We however have faith in the resilience of these country and her people and will continue to do our part to ensuring a return of boom in the Nigerian telecom industry”, she added.
