1,169 PHCN workers yet to receive terminal benefits – BPE

A total of 1,169 workers of the
defunct Power Holding Company of
Nigeria are yet to be paid their
terminal benefits, the Bureau of
Public Enterprises has said.
Director General of BPE, Mr.
Benjamin Dikki, disclosed this
while briefing the National Council
on Privatisation, according to a
statement made available to our
correspondent by Head of Public
Communication at the privatisation
agency, Mr. Chigbo Anichebe, in
Abuja on Wednesday.
According to him, 46,744 out of the
47,913 bona-fide staff, representing
98 per cent of the workforce of the
defunct PHCN have been paid their
entitlements amounting to N373,
170, 291,200.38.
The BPE helmsman said only 1,169
of the 47,913 workers of the defunct
PHCN were yet to be paid.
He said the outstanding number
included workers that had left
before severance payment; those
being processed for validation; and
those yet to be identified by PHCN
as genuine workers adding that the
working group was looking into the
cases to arrive at a final closure.
Dikki also told the NCP chaired by
Vice President Namadi Sambo that
2,791 retired staff of the
PHCN representing 65 per cent of
the retirees had been paid
N16,414,926,902.38.
He said an outstanding number of
1,516 retirees have so far failed to
turn up for verification or were still
undergoing further verification or
their next of kin had not been able
to produce the necessary court
papers.
Responding to the briefing, the NCP
noted the progress achieved by the
implementation committee on the
payment of the severance, pension
and gratuity of the workers and
retirees of PHCN and directed that
the implementation committee
should handover to BPE all
information and documents
concerning outstanding active staff
and pensioners verifications and
payments.
The council also directed that the
process of verification and payment
of all the outstanding cases should
continue until the final resolution
of the exercise.
The implementation committee
was constituted 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 were no encumbrances to
the handover of the successor
companies to the respective
investors.