Husband & wife drag SSGI to court
July 7, 2015 By Hassan Gbassay Koroma
Malthe and Bahtiden Golla have sued the Security Support Group International (SSGI) to the Industrial Court of Sierra Leone over the non-payment of redundant benefit.
Testifying in court yesterday (Monday 6th July) before Justice Patrick Hamilton, the second plaintiff, Bahtiden Golla, who currently works as Data and Training Manager at the World Health Organization (WHO), said she was employed as Administrative Manager at SSGI in 2011 and that she was being paid two thousand United States dollars per month.
She said her monthly salary was increased to three thousand United States dollars in 2012.
She said on 3rd January, 2013, she was redundant by the management of SSGI despite not receiving any letter of query about her service from the company.
According to her, she asked the management to pay her benefit but they refused.
“Because they refused to pay my benefit, I consulted a lawyer who then wrote to the management of SSGI, but nothing came out of it,” she told the court. “I later contacted the Ministry of Labour and Social Security and several meetings were called between me and the management of SSGI to resolve the matter, but they failed to show up.”
She said after the Ministry of Labour had written several letters to the management, they computed her benefit which summed up to twenty-three thousand United States dollars.
“Since the management of SSGI has refused to respond to calls by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, I contacted my lawyer, who again wrote the management,” she said. “I was later informed by my lawyer that the management had replied but I did not agree with the figures stated in the company’s reply.”
Justice Hamilton adjourned the matter to 14th July for the defendant’s lawyer, Osman Jalloh, to open his case as counsel Shears-Moses, who represented the plaintiff, has closed his case.