The Taraba State government has been ordered by the National Industrial Court to immediately pay 18 persons in its employees who were disengaged for being non-indigenes the sum of N73.2 million as their claims as well as N30 million as damages.
Justice James Agbadu-Fishim of the Yola Division of the court declared the exclusion of the 18 persons who are non-indigenous staff of the Taraba Publishing Company from redeployment based on their states of origin as unconstitutional and infringing on their fundamental right to freedom from discrimination.
The court held that the act of the Taraba State government in selectively absorbing the employees of the company into the state civil service by adopting indigene criteria was discriminatory against the 18 employees and constituted a violation of the constitutional right against discrimination at the workplace.
Justice Agbadu-Fishim therefore ordered the Executive Governor of Taraba State, the Attorney General, Commissioner for Information, and Taraba Publishing Company Limited to pay them the sum of N73,257,715.40 as their entitlements from September 2014 to January, 2021, and awarded the sum of N30 million as damages for the mental torture, trauma and hardship suffered by them as well as N5.3 million as costs of the action.
According to available court documents, the 18 workers submitted that they were employed at various times by the Taraba Publishing Company and that their appointments were subsequently confirmed after they completed their probation periods.
They added that they remained committed to their responsibilities and were regularly paid their salaries until September 2014 when payment was stopped.
They told the court that their employments were never terminated and that no official letters of disengagement were issued to them, and that although the Taraba Publishing Company ceased operations in some of its offices, the state government absorbed employees of the publishing company who were indigenes of Taraba State into the civil service while leaving out those of them who were non-indigenes.
In its defence, the state government maintained that the Taraba Publishing Company was wound up and that the government employed eligible and qualified former staff of the publishing company into the civil service after observance of due process.
It further argued that the company was an incorporated one with a corporate personality different from its promoters, owners, shareholders, incorporators and directors, and that the 18 workers, having been employees of the publishing company, had no contractual relationship with Taraba State.
It further submitted that even if the government had controlling shares in the publishing company, that did not bring the workers employment under the purview of the civil service or make the company an agent of the Taraba State government.
Delivering judgment after consideration of the evidences adduced, Justice Agbadu-Fishim held that the assertion of the state government that the Taraba Publishing Company had been wound up was debunked and discredited by the documentary evidence presented by the workers, particularly the Status Report of the company from the Companies Registry of the Corporate Affairs Commission showing that the publishing company was alive and not dissolved.
The judge stated that the Taraba State government promoted and incorporated the publishing company for publishing business purposes, controlled its affairs and appointed its Managing Consultant and Chief Executive Officer.
He also held that the state government could not create a company, employ staff through the company for its publishing or commercial purposes, cease funding or operating the company, fail to terminate the employment of the staff, fail to wind up the company according to the law, and then rely on the company’s separate personality to defeat accrued salary and gratuity or terminal benefit claims or employment obligations and constitutional purposes.
The judge stated that employees of a state-owned incorporated company may be regarded as being in the public service of the state for constitutional purposes where the government holds controlling shares or interest in the company, but that such employees remain governed by the company’s regulations, conditions of service and employment contracts unless the Public Service Rules are expressly or impliedly incorporated into their employment.
The judge therefore held that in such exceptional and peculiar situations, the state government shall not be allowed to rely on the corporate personality of the company to avoid or defeat employment obligations and constitutional rights.
