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FG expends N373bn on PHCN severance benefits

By on April 24, 2015

The National Council on Privatisation (NCP) has affirmed that a total sum of N373.17 billion has been paid to staff of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) as entitlements.

While commending the progress achieved by the Implementation Committee on the payment of the severance, pension and gratuity of the workers and retirees of PHCN, the council also noted that 46,744 staff out of the 47,913 bonafide members of staff, representing 98 per cent of the workforce, had been paid their entitlements.

The council, nevertheless, directed that the Implementation Committee should handover to  BPE all information and documents concerning outstanding active staff and pensioners verifications and payments.

It further directed that processes on all the outstanding cases be resumed until the final resolution of the exercise.

In a recent briefing to the NCP, Director General, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr. Benjamin Dikki, had said 1,169 workers were yet to be paid their entitlements.

He said the outstanding number included workers who had exited before severance payment; those being processed for validation; as well as those yet to be identified by PHCN as bonafide workers.

He said the working group was looking into these cases to arrive at a final closure.

However, the council, in a statement signed by BPE spokesman, Mr. Chigbo Anichebe, noted that 2,791 retired staff of the PHCN representing 65 per cent of the retirees had been paid  N16,414,926,902.38 with an outstanding number of 1,516 retirees who have so far failed to turn up for verification or were still undergoing further verification or their next of kin have not been able to produce the necessary court papers.

The federal government had inaugurated an Implementation Committee in March 2013 with the mandate to implement the agreement reached with the Power Sector Labour Unions in December 2012. The objective was to facilitate the payment of the entitlements of all workers of PHCN and  ensure that there are no encumberances to the handover of the successor companies to the respective INVESTORS.

The first phase of the task, which recorded payment to 98 percent of the staff was done from July 2013 to the first week of March 2015, while the second phase of the assignment which started from February 2015 to date, was conducted to address non-payment to few active staff and majority of retirees and the next-of-kin of deceased staff.

BPE had drawn the attention of NCP to the fact that despite the substantial progress made in the settlement of the terminal benefits of PHCN workers which culminated in the relative industrial harmony experienced in the sector today, there had been some challenges the BPE was striving to surmount.

These include non appearance of Active Staff/Retirees and Next-of-kin of deceased PHCN employees for verification exercises carried out by the Committee several times and despite massive publicity for the assignment; the logistical challenge of reaching out to some of these beneficiaries who have been confirmed ill/terminally- ill and domiciled in some remote parts of the country as well as means of reaching out to PHCN staff/ Retirees in Diaspora for verification.

NCP also noted the case of some PHCN workers in the diaspora, which the Committee couldn’t reach in the course of the assignment.

Consequently, it directed that those staff based abroad should be encouraged to come to Nigeria for their verifications and payments.

 

[ThisDay]

One Comment

  1. amsaan

    April 24, 2015 at 5:34 pm

    BPE why the sudden concern? I hop is not part of the fear you have for Buhari,