N342.8b ready for 40,093 PHCN workers’ severance pay

All is set for the payment of severance
packages to 40,093 Power Holding Company of
Nigeria (PHCN) workers. Their names have
been sent to the Office of the Accountant
General of the Federation (OAGF) for payment,
the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has
said.
The BPE, in a statement by its spokesman
Chigbo Anichebe, said the action was line with
the government's commitment to settling the
workers' outstanding payment and ensuring
the smooth take off of the PHCN's successor
companies.
It said N342.8billion had been released to the
Office of the Accountant General of the
Federation for the payment.
Speaking at a forum in Abuja, BPE's Director-
General Benjamin Ezra Dikki said the figure
represented payment to 84 per cent of the
entire workforce of the former state-owned
electricity giant.
Dikki, who was represented by the BPE's
Project Manager (PM), Electric Power
Department, Mr. Amaechi Aloke, said of the six
batches, the OAGF had confirmed the payment
of three, totalling 26,899 persons.
He said OAGF promised that two more batches
(4 and 5) covering 11,716 workers would be
paid their entitlements next week.
On union dues, the DG said that the OAGF had
confirmed the remittance of N3bn to the two
PHCN unions-the Senior Staff Association of
Electricity and Allied Companies, (SSAEAC) and
National Union of Electricity Employees
(NUEE), deducted from the PHCN workers'
benefits.
Interest groups, such as the Nigerian Labour
Congress (NLC), Nigerian Bar Association
(NBA), the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO),
the Senior Staff Association of Power Holding
Company of Nigeria, among others, have
protested against the late payment of the
severance package of PHCN workers.
They threatened to scuttle PHCN's
privatisation, if the government failed to
address the problem. To avert crisis, the
government decided to settle the workers'
outstanding ahead of January 2014 when the
Transitional Electricity Market (TEM) will take
off. Source: thenation