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8,000 ex-PHCN workers worry over severance benefits

By on April 10, 2015

There is palpable fear among 8,000 workers of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria over the non-payment of their severance benefits by the Federal Government, 16 months after the power firm was unbundled and privatised.

Our correspondent gathered that the Federal Government had yet to make good its promise of paying the remaining workers, despite assuring them in January that it would clear their benefits within weeks.

The workers’ fear of non-payment of benefits was heightened by the loss of President Goodluck Jonathan at the presidential election, as the privatisation process was largely driven by his administration.

It was learnt that the fund for the payment of the over 47,000 workers of the defunct power firm had been released by the Federal Government but the payment of about 8,000 employees was allegedly being delayed by the Bureau of Public Enterprises and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.

The affected workers alleged that both agencies were trading with the fund, stressing that this had prompted the delay in the payment of their severance package.

In January, The PUNCH had reported that the aggrieved workers staged a protest at the headquarters of the PHCN in Abuja, demanding the payment of their severance benefits.

The Federal Ministry of Power had in a swift response, said it was not true that 8,000 of the workers had not been paid.

The ministry, in a statement, said it had validated and would pay 1,669 of the workers in the same month of January through the BPE as their details were on the list of persons to be paid by the privatisation agency.

“But up till this moment, nothing has been done,” the Chairman, National Union of Electricity Employees, Abuja, Mr. Wisdom Nwachukwu, told our correspondent on Tuesday.

He added, “We that are here in Abuja are the ones who are mainly fighting for the payment of the workers who are still being owed. But up till now, we have not received any payment. So, if we have not received ours, what is the assurance that those that are outside Abuja have received theirs?

“We have done the necessary validation and have filled the necessary forms for a long time and after that, the next thing should be payment, but that has not been done. The money has been released, but it is like they are trading with the workers’ benefits and this is not good.”

Nwachukwu explained that it was important that the government settled all outstanding claims of the workers before handing over to the incoming administration on May 29.

He stressed that the workers who were yet to get their severance benefits were becoming apprehensive, adding that many of them were afraid of not being paid again.

When contacted, the spokesperson for the BPE, Mr. Chigbo Anichebe, told our correspondent that the bureau was careful not to pay “ghost workers.”

“We haven’t seen some people out of the total number that was given to us by the PHCN. Although some people say they may be ghost workers, we don’t want to conclude that they are ghost workers. So, we are going to wait as long as we can to make sure that all of them come up for verification,” he said.

Anichebe noted that all verified claims had been forwarded to the accountant-general’s office for payment, but advised the workers to follow up on their respective claims there.

He said, “We think it is important that they follow up with the accountant-general’s office because it is their money. This, however, does not mean that we are not following up on the issue.

“We do follow up, because they give us the breakdown of those they have paid and those they have not paid, and we also forward complaints of the workers to them.”

 

[Punch]