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Technology Stocks : Africa - The Wireless Frontier -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: quartersawyer who wrote (66)	1/5/2007 11:44:58 PM
From: waitwatchwander	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 180

Local handset factory closes shop • Friday, Jan 5, 2007 The only handset factory in Nigeria is now gathering dust as the Chinese owner, ZTE Nig, has stopped production for more than eight months. Our correspondent gathered that the company had closed shop for the second time in two years as it was closed for two months in 2005 over administrative problems. Our correspondent, who visited the handset factory in Abuja at the weekend, observed that the administrative office and customer centre were covered with dust. The waiting room of the factory was also littered with pieces of paper and dirt while a handful of security men kept vigil at the entrance. An impeccable source, which had worked with the company, said that the factory had not assembled any handset since it was inaugurated by the former Minister of Communication, Chief Cornelius Adebayo, in May, last year. The source said that the company had been trying to sell the handsets it had assembled before the visit. The source said that most of the workers in the factory who were neatly clad in ZTE factory overalls during the minister’s visit were only hired and trained for the event. The source said that the 20 workers who worked at the factory during the visit were trained a day before the visit and after the inauguration they were each paid N2,000 for two days service. “My brother worked there for two days and he collected his N2,000 after the minister’s visit and left for school, “ another source at the factory said. The minister of communications had commended the Chinese company for providing jobs to so many Nigerians during his visit. Adebayo had asked the Chinese company why they were assembling handsets instead of manufacturing as was stipulated in their proposals and agreement with the ministry. The ZTE Nig. officials said the assembling of the sets would precede manufacturing, which, they added, would begin after the staff had been trained and facilities were set up. Investigations at the ZTE Nig. Headquarters in Maitama revealed that the Chinese company had hired two sets of workers since it started operations in 2004 but only one out of the 50 staff employed was still with the company. “All the others were disengaged on the excuse that the phone market was not bringing in profit as expected,” a source at the headquarters said. The source further revealed that none of the workers at the factory was given an employment letter based on the excuse that they would only get their letters after some months of probation. Asked if they were paid any disengagement package, the sources said: “All the workers only got their salary for the months they worked.” The source said that customers had been complaining over the “exorbitant rates” of the handsets and frequent faults. A staff of the company, Mr Lin Wen, who had hired some workers at the weekend to clean up the factory refused to comment on the closure. He said that only the top officials at the ZTE Nig. headquarters in Maitama had authority to speak on the situation. When our correspondent visited the headquarters of the company in Maitama for the second time, some officials of the company said the top officials had travelled out of the country and they would be away for some time. It would be recalled that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had sanctioned ZTE Nig. Handsets Company in 2005 for selling its handsets without obtaining a clearance certificate from the regulatory body. The clearance certificate was later issued to the company after the NCC officials had checked the quality of the phones thetidenews.com