Telenor Pakistan, the most sought after employer, as claimed by the company, has fired its whole Network Security and Maintenance Department in a fickle, told us sources close to the situation.
Our sources further confirmed us that the decision was sudden and without any prior notification whatsoever. Perhaps Telenor did not want its other employees to feel insecure about their jobs – who, as a matter of fact, should feel insecure – that’s why no internal memo was circulated.
When we asked Telenor the details about the incident, Aamir Izhar, a company spokesperson confirmed that company recently outsourced its network maintenance and security contract to a multinational vendor.
“As part of the contract Telenor Pakistan’s network security team has been absorbed by the vendor to ensure the existing high standards of network security for Telenor Pakistan infrastructure”, added Mr. Izhar.
This apparently means that whole Network Security and Maintenance Department was given away to Huawei, and employees will have to work under new employer and of course with new contracts, terms and maybe the pay scales.
This has happened amid the mist of recent vendor change. Telenor Pakistan’s contract with Nokia Siemens Networks ended this month and now its Huawei that will be looking after Telenor’s Network Maintenance and Security across the country.
On other hands, we are told that some of the terminated employees, including Babar Ghayoor Khan, Network Security manager, is not joining Huawei as a protest against sudden termination.
Even after repeated attempts, we could not establish a direct communication with Babar Ghayoor to know his viewpoint.
This is not only unprofessional and unethical on Telenor’s part, but also bears a testimony to the unstable and uncertain culture perpetuating in the private sector too. One can concatenate this to the earlier incidents of the strike by PTCL’s employees, the outburst of KESC’s employees and later the bout of PIA’s workers. It is indeed a sad moment.