Five years and four months have passed since Good as Good Ventures, a Port Harcourt-based company, supplied goods worth N775,200 to ALCON Nigeria Limited without receiving payment.
ALCON Nigeria Limited is an engineering and civil construction company in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Prisca Onyegbule, the managing director of Good as Good, told FIJ that she registered as a vendor with the company, and this allows her to supply items to the company regularly.
What she did not anticipate when she supplied items like paint markers, staple pins and masking tapes on March 31, 2020, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, was a five-year wait for payment.
“I’ve been supplying to them before 2020, and they’ve been paying, but it took them about two years to pay for one of my supplies that cost over N2 million, but I did not imagine this,” Onyegbule disclosed.
“But I notice that if it’s a cash job, they will pay on time. In fact, I had three jobs then. They paid the other ones, but I don’t know why they said over N700,000 was big money, yet they were paying other vendors plenty of money.”
Onyegbule said she sent an invoice to ALCON dated June 24, 2020, which the company acknowledged, but she still did not receive the N775,200 payment.
“After the expiration of the payment period, I made several efforts to know the cause of the delay. But ALCON told me to exercise patience,” she said.
“I visited the office, wrote letters to the finance manager and even the managing director. When I submitted the MD’s letter to the secretary, she refused to receive it from me and asked me to submit it in the box at the gate.”
Onyegbule said she told the company all that she was passing through and how much the money would ease her financial predicament, but all her pleas fell on deaf ears.
“They promised several times to pay that money, but they did not. Whenever I reached out to them, they would tell me not to worry. I went back there in February of this year to confirm that they are still working in the company. People are there. They are still working, but I wonder why they are refusing to pay me,” the vendor said in a voice heavy with pain.
FIJ emailed ALCON Nigeria Limited on June 27, but no response had been received at press time. The messages sent via SMS and WhatsApp have also not been responded to.
On Thursday morning, FIJ contacted Bello Ibrahim, the procurement personnel through whom Onyegbule supplied the items, and he corroborated Onyegbule’s report.
“I am no longer working with ALCON. Although I was the procurement officer when she supplied the items to ALCON, the company had some challenges that they terminated the employment of almost all of their workers, including mine in 2022,” Ibrahim said.
“I don’t know whether they have paid or not, but I know that they had something outstanding payments before they terminated our appointments,” he added.
He said he would make some findings to see if he knows any current staff members whose contact details he could share with FIJ.
“The company folded, but I heard they have started to bounce back. I will do my research and see if I can get contacts of people who are still there and share with you,” he said.