By Etuka Sunday
The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) yesterday disclosed that 201 workers of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) are yet to be paid, nine months after the handover of privatised assets.
The Director General of the Bureau, Mr Benjamin Dikki in a presentation at the ongoing inaugural National Council on Power (NACOP) summit in Abuja said labour issue was a major force that almost stalled the privatisation exercise but was resolved through mutual agreements.
Dikki said: “Government went into negotiations with labour which took over 14 months, an agreement was reached; so far 98percent of the 47,913 workers of PHCN have been paid their severance and pensions gratuities.”
“Out of the staff who were identified as staff, 46,326 were validated, 45,750 have had their funds remitted to the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) office and have been paid.
“So we have only 201 outstanding payments that have been validated and they are in the process of being affected,” he noted.
He maintained that so far, government is yet to validate 865 staff with another 722 unidentified cases, adding that N371bn was remitted to the AGF office for effecting the payments which have been confirmed.
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