EXCLUSIVE: Nigerian company forces employees to surrender federal grant
The Survival Fund Scheme is meant to support small businesses and to protect jobs during COVID-19 pandemic.

Beneficiaries of a federal government monthly “survival” grant, who work in a hotel in Akwa Ibom State, have been forced to surrender the money for three months to the hotel management.

Ten employees of the hotel, Duran Hotels, Uyo, including the hotel CEO, in October, enrolled in the Survival Fund scheme, an initiative of the Nigerian government to support small businesses and help protect jobs during the outbreak of COVID-19.

The hotel employees received N30,000 each as a monthly grant from the programme.

But as soon as the money hit their bank account, they were instructed by the CEO of the hotel, Anthony Achanya, to withdraw and hand it over to a senior official of the hotel, PREMIUM TIMES learnt.

The hotel would then give them a lesser amount of the money as salary.

Mr Achanya, who did not deny the story, told PREMIUM TIMES that Duran Hotels acted in accordance with an agreement it had with the employees before their enrolment in the scheme.

Mr Achanya, himself a registered beneficiary of the grant, said he introduced the scheme to the hotel workers.

He said he had informed them that the grant money would be shared to cover other hotel workers who were not able to enroll.

“We have about 40 workers,” said Mr Achanga who said he was only able to secure 10 slots for his hotel.


The hotel, prior to the survival programme, was paying each of the employees N15,000 as monthly salary.

The salary was increased to N17,000 after the hotel started benefitting from the federal grant.

One of the employees, who identified herself simply as Ekanem, remitted only N29,000 to Duran Hotel in the first month. She claimed bank charges chopped off about a thousand naira from the grant.


The hotel eventually stopped her December salary and fired her after she refused to remit the grant money for the other two months.

Ms Ekanem denied Mr Achanga’s claim about the existence of an understanding that the grant money was meant to be shared to other employees. Two other employees, however, told PREMIUM TIMES there was such understanding.

Mr Achanga said Ms Ekanem’s salary was stopped because she was unable to recover N26,000 from a customer whom she sold an item to on credit.

Six of the employees were consistent in remitting the N30,000 every month, for three months, to the hotel, PREMIUM TIMES learnt, while two of the hotel workers who enrolled for the grant, left the hotel’s employ before the commencement of the programme.

Mr Achanga said a former manager with the hotel, Lizzy John, went away with the grant money and other monies belonging to the hotel.


Ms John denied the allegation.

She said she only collated the workers’ name, their Bank Verification Number (BVN) and other information for enrollment for the grant, and that she resigned from the hotel in October before the first grant money was paid in November.

“It’s a cheap blackmail,” she said of the accusation from her former boss whom she said was still owing her N455,000 as unpaid salaries.

Duran Hotels is a small hotel located in the heart of Uyo, the Akwa Ibom capital.

Similar extortion is said to have been perpetrated by proprietors of private schools in Akwa Ibom State.

“A Nursery school teacher also narrated how his employer demanded 20k out of the 30k that was paid by FG and he refused to give it to the proprietress which led to his resignation from the school,” a Facebook user, Eyakndu Ubong, said on the social media site.

“I don’t know why some employers are this selfish,” he added.

The Survival Fund scheme is a component of the Nigerian Economic Sustainability Plan.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo heads a committee which produced the plan and is also overseeing its implementation.

N27 billion was released for the implementation of the Survival Fund scheme nationwide, according to a report by ThisDay newspaper.

https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/441196-exclusive-nigerian-company-forces-employees-to-surrender-federal-grant.html

the survival fund is now cursing problems now, nawaoo

Freestainworld:
the survival fund is now cursing problems now, nawaoo

But you still have some political hirelings and gremlin denying its existence.

Las Las everybody Na scam

serious wahala

This kind of money is meant for people who are completely down. Hotel owners who are still doing pretty well still applied to ensure those who really need it dont get it.
Bad leaders and bad followers.

Not surprised sha, some bank contract staff earning 90k monthly still enrolled for npower, depriving completely jobless graduates of slots.

some people are too greedy

But they said nobody is receiving this money

Well I have come to realize somethings that if you keep believing what people are saying about government schemes online then you've already pave way to miss out of it.

Greed.

Most Nigerians are bad people, but they know how to insult the government.

FG is giving out grants to support people, why take it from them again.

Later dem go say Bubu no dey try.

There was a similar complaint brought in on a WhatsApp group I'm in.

The employer was asking how she can get the money back using a banking platform because the employee is no more with her.

What is really wrong with us humans? If the money was meant for the employers, why did the FG asked for the employees details?

This tells you what it would have been like if the FG paid the cash directly into the employer's account.
30k oo

234GT:
This kind of money is meant for people who are completely down. Hotel owners who are still doing pretty well still applied to ensure those who really need it dont get it.
Bad leaders and bad followers.

Bad followers , produces bad leaders. Followership is our problem in Nigeria. Even when you have the leadership trying to do the right thing, the bad followers are ready to sabotage the efforts

sapphiere:

What's the link between the attachment and the topic now

First time my comment will be on front page..

Hit like if you are happy with this development

femi4:
What's the link between the attachment and the topic now

The Hotel manager is a male. Got it?

The problem of nigeria starts from our dirty selfish hearts...


Watch the video in my signature of Nigerian youths discussing insecurity in Nigeria, you need to see how deep and exposing that conversation was.
If my signature doesn't work then check my profile for my post on insecurity in Nigeria


Greed and selfishness is our root problem...

Same here in Ilorin. Immediately you got the alert, you send the money back to the school you work for, some will give you half of the money while some will not give you up to that.

But my question is who owns the money? Business owners or their staffs

And we all will be blaming the government as if we are not all the same.

The characters of our leaders is a reflection of our characters as a nation. After all, those leaders were not selected from Iraq or Vietnam.

Greedy lots. They had to fire that woman.

My school director says another registration is on now ( which is true cos I've confirmed it) but that she's not going to help anybody again this time around because we refused to give her 50% of the first one we got. Whereas we gave her 15%.

The Hotel is even still reasonable. At least he's asking for the others who didn't get but my director wanted thr 50% for herself.

rip-off

This isn't funny a bit...

sapphiere:

Well, what's this new political statement?

Get your affordable kids educational android tablets.

Please go through my threads for pictures, specifications, functions and contact

femi4:
What's the link between the attachment and the topic now

Males dominate the world right from inception.
So,she is obsesse with the idea of females taking over by the relegation of males dominance to the background.
E nor fit happen.

234GT:
This kind of money is meant for people who are completely down. Hotel owners who are still doing pretty well still applied to ensure those who really need it dont get it.
Bad leaders and bad followers.

Not surprised sha, some bank contract staff earning 90k monthly still enrolled for npower, depriving completely jobless graduates of slots.

What's the point of that 'N-power' thing?

I still don't get it. I log in online to see some folks raving about it all the time like santa's coming to town.

For what The Management has a case to answer.

sapphiere:
The Hotel manager is a male. Got it?

A proprietress did the same in a private school

Gbcd

This kind of employer are many in the country.

I heard of an employer who would deliberately steal from his shop and ask his employees to pay. Just to keep them enslaved to him.

An employer that can ask his employees to remit federal grant will most likely be skipping salaries.

For God's sake, is 30k too much to give someone? Personally, with the present state of the country, anyone living on less than 50k monthly is living a substandard life even if the person is a cleaner.

It's normal to be covetous but when a person can't use their humanity to tame their covetousness then such person is not different from wild beasts.

I don't blame them. I blame our youths who spend hundreds of thousands (or even millions) every weekend at these hotels.

We need to imbibe the culture of helping the poor and weak amongst us. But no, it's those poor and weak we like to catch cruise with. Just as Boko Haram likes to catch cruise with poor farmers.

If they indeed shared it among all the workers, it's understandable.
Many private schools were only able to enroll 10 employees whereas they have about 19 teachers or more. Hence, the need for equity. The one I knew asked each beneficiary to share the money with a colleague that wasn't enrolled and still 2 more employees couldn't get it and the school sort it for them too in order to create balance.