Another vehement disclaimer has been issued by the Bonny Employment Monitoring Committee regarding the activities of Winston Engineering Services Limited in Bonny Island.

This is as the alleged job racketeering firm and its chief executive officer, Winston Brown, continued to give its victims false hopes of getting them employed in the Train 7 project of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG) in Bonny Island.

In a response to Kristina Reports enquiry, Chairman of the Employment Monitoring Committee, Tamuno Dan-Jumbo stated that his team is not aware of any such company in Bonny Island, informing that contrary to the claim by Brown, inductions do not hold on Friday/Saturday.

“Please, I don’t know any company called Winston Engineering Services.”

“Inductions in Train 7 takes place on Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday.”

This apparently shows that the mooted claim by Brown, in a recent voice note in his WhatsApp group that some persons had started going for induction may after all be false.

Kristina Reports has tracked three weekends consecutively in June 2023 and there have been no persons brought in for induction by Winston Engineering Services Limited or its representatives.

The Employment Monitoring Committee was set up by the Bonny Local Government Council in concert with the Bonny Kingdom Traditional Institution to provide overwatch on the employment processes in Bonny Island.

It works in tandem with the Bonny Integrated Recruitment Centre (BIRC), companies, representatives of chieftaincy houses and the non-indigenous bodies in Bonny LGA to ensure the employment processes were compliant with agreed protocols and equity arrangements between relevant stakeholders.

Recall that the NLNG, alongside ExxonMobil, Shell Nigeria, Daewoo Engineering and Construction Company of Nigeria, Saipem Contracting Nigeria Limited, and Evomec Global Services Limited (EGSL), had denied having any dealings with Winston Engineering Services Limited.  

A series of disclaimers from these companies indicate clearly that the company and its Chief Executive Officer, Winston Brown, are not involved in the Train 7 project or any other construction project in Bonny Island.

Also, Kristina Reports investigated and found that the claim in another voice note by Brown that transport fares to Bonny Island from Port Harcourt costs between N9,500 and N10,000 was patently false.  

Checks at various travel routes into and out of Bonny Island indicate a clear variance from his claim.

Boat fare from Nembe/Bonny/Bille Jetty by Creek Road in Port Harcourt via speedboats with outboard engines to Coal Beach in Bonny is currently N5,000 for one way trips, while a round trip is N10,000.

A one way trip from Bodo Jetty in Gokana LGA to Igoni-Polo Jetty in Bonny is currently N4,500. A round trip is N9,000.  

Travellers utilizing the Tourist Beach Jetty in downtown Port Harcourt Township can only do charter, which costs between N45,000 and N60,000; while those utilizing the NLNG, Saipem and other company ferry services do not pay any fares.

Winston Brown, who is also known as Winston Maxwell Tolofari, is alleged to have been dishing out voice notes within the past days assuring his beleaguered victims of securing job opportunities for them on the Train 7 project in Bonny.

He has also urged them to disregard news reports from Kristina Reports, dismissing them as fake, while evading the salient issues of extortion and disclaimers raised in the said reports.

Winston Engineering Services Limited had early in 2023 issued employment letters to its unsuspecting victims with assurances that they were being employed by the company. The letters as sighted by Kristina Reports have columns where the alleged company of deployment is indicated including Daewoo, Saipem, Cico, etc.

Also, another claim by Winston Brown that his company provides feeding and accommodation for his purported employees via his company caterers, was also found to be false. The companies in Bonny Island provide feeding for their staff on the worksite.

Winston Engineering Services Limited, not having a role on the Train 7 worksite, has no catering company or vendor working for it on the project site. It also does not have any allotted section of the Train 7 workers’ residential facility as it is not part of the project.

Checks with hotels in Bonny Island by Kristina Reports also show that there are no reservations in the name of Winston Engineering Services Limited.

These findings by Kristina Reports clearly underscore the reality of an ongoing recruitment scam being allegedly perpetrated by Winston Engineering Services Limited. Victims who spoke with Kristina Reports say that recruitment, induction, medicals, feeding and accommodation were some of the items they were goaded into making payments for.

Efforts to get the reaction of Winston Brown on these issues proved abortive as he was yet to respond to enquiries sent to him via his WhatsApp line.

In a chat with Kristina Reports, a senior police officer who preferred anonymity, had some words of advice for those patronizing Winston Engineering Services Limited, urging them to be wary of the said company.

“Assuming without conceding the news reports and findings about this company are not correct; a company that promised you a job and months later, in some cases a year or more in between, you don’t have the job, should anyone tell you what to do?”

“The same companies he said he wants to employ you into have come out to say they don’t know or have any business with him or his company and you are still there listening to him. The information he has been feeding you with have turned out not to be true and yet you are there.”

“The Police will do its best to apprehend and prosecute criminal elements in the society but the Police will not assume your intellectual abilities for you. If you allow yourself to be scammed by criminal elements inspite of available information, you are on your own.”