The announcement by Neoplan Company limited that it is folding up on Friday, the 1st of February, has hit backtrack, according to reports.
Solomon Kotei, General Secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union reveals that government has since responded to the news of the impending close down with a meeting with Management of Neoplan.
“At the meeting, the resolution was that– management is going to withdraw its letter of notice that the company will be closed down by 1st of February and they will give themselves next two to three months to resolve issues,” Mr. Kotei said.
Consequently, he confirmed that the announced fold up on Friday will not happen.
The ICU was one of the participants in the meeting that the Ministry of Trade had called over the issue. This is because, after Management of Neoplan had announced the impending closedown, the ICU had written to them warning that due process had to be followed.
According to reports, Neoplan is in a state of unprofitability because Government, which owns majority shares, has not been injecting capital into its operations. This relegation of responsibility has burdened the Fadoul Group, Minority shareholders with the responsibility of funding the operations of the company on their own.
In 2016, the Minority shareholder paid government an additional US$173,000 for additional 20% shares of the company but government did not release the shares.
According to Mr.Kotei, Neoplan has also not been getting business and contracts from government like it used to do.
In 2002, he says, Neoplan had a booming business after many buses had been acquired, but then the government diverted interest into sourcing Yutong buses from China, basically taking opportunities away from Neoplan.
Even though Neoplan still assembled the Yutong buses, the scale of the business has since been on a downhill, leading to a situation where the company owes staff salary arrears spanning several months.