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.