More than 20 former staff of Nile Petroleum Company in Wau state are appealing to the state-owned oil firm management in Juba to reinstate them.
The men and women say they were working at the Nilepet depot in Wau until last month when they were sent home under unclear circumstances.
In a letter sent to the workers, the management instructed them to stay at home until a “refinery kicks off soon as scheduled”.
However, the Nilepet Supervisor of retail outlet – Emmanuel Deng Gordon, who has also been served with the letter, suspects nepotism in the oil firm.
According to him, Nilepet is still operational and the management has already recruited new staff.
“He [branch manager] has appointed a number of new staff after us and they were not given probationary period,” said Emmanuel Deng, who was speaking on behalf of his colleagues.
“I want to make it clearly to the managing director and the board of directors to look into our matter seriously. Let him be concerned about the [staff] of Wau depot and retail outlet.”
Eye Radio’s attempts to reach the Nilepet Public Relations office was not immediately successful.