Emma Amaize
6 October 2011, Sweetcrude, WARRI- THE crisis in Delta Steel Company, DSC, Delta State, took a different dimension, yesterday, with report that more three top Indian officials of the company have been held hostage by their nationals on hunger strike over salaries and pay off .
A source disclosed that no Indian worker reported for duty yesterday morning as a result of the action by the striking workers, who were disenchanted that their compatriots at the management level took a decision to to stop the company’s bus from conveying them to the office because of their protest.
The striking workers had earlier prevented the executive director, operations, Mr. S. Bandari from leaving his home, but it was later gathered that the vice-president, human resources and employee relations, Mr. Aloysious Lobo and general managers in-charge of finance and commercial were also held hostage.
The group of 16 Indian workers that went on 12-hour hunger strike after resigning their appointments to compel management to pay their entitlements were joined by other Indians in the company in the current action.
Investigatins showed that top Indian managers of the company considered the strike action by their nationals, who sit on the floor of the administrative complex to drive home their bitterness as degrading, and stopped the staff bus from conveying them to the office, but the action backfired, as the workers let loose their bottled anger on them.
Despite the strike action by the Indians in the past few weeks, their Nigerian counterparts have continued to sustain the company, but a staff told Vangaurd, “The company may be incapcitated if we run out of raw materials for production because without the general manager (finance) and general manager (commercial), nobody can approve money for raw materials.
“In fact, there is no Nigerian in in the finance division that can directive for the supply of any raw material for production the way they are running the company”, he added.
