Indian workers held hostage unpaid staff in Ethiopia
Claims have been made expatriates in Ethiopia that they are being held hostage local unpaid staff in Ethiopia. The external affairs ministry is looking into these claims. The local staff haven’t been paid after the financer Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd. began defaulting on $12.6 billion in debt.
This shadow lender rocked financial markets after it began missing debt payments earlier this year. Seven Indian workers from the company have been detained since November 25 at three sites in Oromia and Amhara states local unpaid staff in Ethiopia. This is all according to an e-mailed letter from the employees.
They said that the possible termination of some road projects being built Indian and Spanish joint ventures may have triggered local employees to panic. The workers said that the police and officials are taking the side of the locals. They are claiming that they were caught in the “middle of corporate disagreements, blame games and bureaucratic issues.”
Oromia’s police commissioner general, Alemayehu Ejigu, the state’s deputy spokesperson Deressa Terefe, and Amhara state spokesman Nigusu Tillahun didn’t immediately respond to two calls and two text messages.
An official in the capital city of Addis Ababa said that it was “closely following up with local Ethiopian authorities and IL&FS management to resolve the issue.” A separate official in the foreign ministry in New Delhi confirmed that they were looking into the issue. A spokesperson from IL&FS declined to comment.
“Concerns of project termination and absence of senior management from project camps might have triggered panic in local employees and led them to believe confining expat employees might force the organization to pay their salaries,” the employees wrote in a letter addressed to the Indian and Spanish ambassadors, as well as a number of Ethiopian members and the local World Bank representative.
Efforts are underway to rescue the employees held captive the unpaid staff in Ethiopia.
