Nigeria's Senate Committee on Communications intends to investigate MTN Nigeria and the allegation that employee contracts were terminated without proper compensation following the network operator's decision to outsource its call centre services to ISON BPO Ltd.

Affected employees have said the company had notified them of plans to outsource their services, but offered no information on severance packages.

"As we speak nobody is talking about our salaries for the last 15 days we have worked. A lot of us have outstanding leave days that should be monetised but no one is talking about that. Even when they pay the salaries; a lot of us are usually sub-paid, meaning that our salaries are deducted without explanations," said an affected employee who wished to remain anonymous.

Reacting to the development yesterday, the Senate Committee on Communications said telecoms companies should not be allowed to sack their employees without putting into consideration globally accepted labour rules and practices.

Gilbert Nnaji, Chairman of Senate Committee on Communications, said "As the representatives of the people we cannot fold our arms and watch our constituents being relieved of their jobs indiscriminately by employers of labour. We cannot in any way tolerate such. At the same time, we shall also ensure that our foreign investors are not unduly threatened."

MTN said it offered affected employees opportunities to join the new call centers operated by the outsourced service provider.

MTN Executive Amina Oyagbola, said: "MTN signed an outsourcing contract with ISON BPO Limited in 2015 following a competitive bid process. Indeed MTN's call centre operations were outsourced to independent third party agencies since 2008, as part of continued efforts to improve the efficiency and quality of customer service delivery in MTN. This is in line with global best practice for organisations in our industry."

ISON Group CEO Pravin Kumar, said his company is engaging with affected employees who are interested in taking up the opportunity to work with ISON under agreed terms.

"We were pleased to have emerged as the new partner to deliver cost-effective solutions, adopting state-of-the-art technology that supports world-class customer service. The drive for efficient customer service delivery without compromising on quality within prevailing economic realities comes with structural adjustments and we work to balance this with the need to ensure the sustainability of our operations," Kumar said.