The management of Harmony Transport Services Limited (Kwara Express) has said that the transport company was temporarily shutdown because of fraud and gross indiscipline by the staff.
The management also noted that, there’s ongoing efforts to review and investigate the company with the aim of remodeling it for profitability and sustainability.
In a statement by the holding company of Kwara Express, the Group Managing Director of Harmony Holdings Limited, Mr Abdullahi AbdulMajeed, stated that, the company was temporarily shutdown because of systematic fraud being perpetrated by staff of the company over the years and their stiff resistance to positive change.
According to the GMD, the systemic fraud by staff of Kwara Express made it impossible to run the business profitably right from the time it was a public corporation before the business was acquired by Harmony Holdings which is the investment management company of the Kwara state government.
He observed that despite its being transformed from a public corporation to a private limited liability company, the same challenge still confronts the company, occasioned largely by lack of corporate governance, accountability, ineffective cost structure and gross indiscipline of staff , which is now being investigated.
Abdullahi AbdulMajeed explained that, in this season of COVID-19 pandemic, when resources are scarce and government is looking for alternative sources of revenue, all government businesses must be made to function optimally and profitably and Kwara Express cannot be an exception.
The GMD added that the government of Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq has given Harmony Holdings all necessary support to turn the company around for good.
While noting the present government’s concern for the welfare of workers, the GMD said part of his effort worthy of mention was the bailout provided by the Governor to pay salaries to some companies of Harmony Holdings including Kwara Express during the lockdown induced by the pandemic in spite of the fact that workers did not work for a period in excess of three months.
AbdulMajeed, who assured that the report of the Committee set up to review and investigate Kwara Express’s activities will determine the future of the company positively, urged the workers to eschew their age long resistance to change and reforms in the company.
He expressed concern that lack of transparency, accountability and productivity which their disposition reinforces has been the binding constraint to the growth and development of the company.
According to him, we can no longer allow the actions and inactions of less than 200 people to continue to deprive over 3 million Kwarans of the benefit of having an excellently run state owned transport company.
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