Another senior SA telecommunications executive, recruited recently to Nigeria’s Glo Mobile, has resigned. Richard Morse, who was appointed three months ago to head up strategy and innovation at Glo, says he left as a result of the way the company is being managed.
Glo is Nigeria’s second biggest mobile operator after MTN and has more than 20m customers.
The departure of Morse, who was previously group technology executive for telecoms at Dimension Data’s Plessey division, comes just weeks after former Virgin Mobile SA CEO Steve Bailey, who had been named as Glo’s chief commercial officer, quit.
Bailey returned to SA after less than two months in the job, saying he resigned when Glo paid him late and then paid him an amount that was less than what had been agreed.
“I was tempted to resign when Steve Bailey left but decided to stick it out in order to implement a rural telecommunications initiative that … could have increased Glo’s subscriber base by 25%,” says Morse.
“SA expats who have joined the company this year have been taxed more than agreed and the company has used a lower than agreed exchange rate to pay them. Most of the expats are disillusioned and are looking for a way out.”
Morse alleges that Glo’s human resources department pays people late and “does not adhere to what it has commited to in employment contracts”.
“Glo has a total lack of corporate governance,” he says.
A source close to some of the South Africans working at Glo says the company changed its leave policy for expats last week Friday.
In terms of the new rules, they are not entitled to paid annual leave for the first 12 months of their contracts and will also not be allowed to take unpaid leave for their first six months on the job.
“It seems to be a response to expats coming back to SA and then just not returning to Nigeria,” the source says. “The mood among the SA expats is very gloomy.”
Glo chairman Mike Adenuga could not be reached on his mobile phone on Monday for comment. — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media
