THE Federal Government has spent N409.91bn on the payment of severance and death benefits to ex-workers of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria, the Bureau of Public Enterprises has said.
The amount was confirmed in a statement signed by the Bureau’s Head of Public Communications, Amina Othman Tukur.
Tukur explained that the payment streams were categorised into two – severance payments to former active members of staff of PHCN and the payment of PHCN Retirees/Death benefits – which PHCN could not pay before it handed over to the successor companies.
According to the statement, for active payment, PHCN submitted 47, 913 names of workers, out of which 47,275 of them, representing 99 per cent, have been fully paid.
The names of these workers, she said, were forwarded to the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation for payment in 36 batches.
The Bureau noted that out of the 638 outstanding active staff, there were 167 duplicate and blank spaces on the list, while 414 never turned up for verification.
She added that 25 workers had been audited and were awaiting cash-backing, noting that nine of them with initial documentation problems would soon be audited; while 23 of the ex-PHCN workers had documentation problems.
The statement noted that in the course of the verification, 81 cases were found to be short-paid, which had been corrected and cash-backed, while 180 cases recently treated and recomputed for short–payment were awaiting cash-backing.
The BPE added that 4,438 PHCN Retirees/Next of Kins had been submitted in eight batches, noting that, to date, 3,131 representing, 71 per cent of the beneficiaries, had been fully paid their entitlements, while 1,307 had yet to be paid.
On the two per cent Union deductions, the Bureau said a total of N7.48bn had already been paid to the defunct PHCN Union’s account, from batches one to 36, while the Bureau had already written to the Accountant General of the Federation to credit the Unions’ Account for the remaining deductions.
In terms of the 10 per cent equity shareholding for staff of the defunct utility company, the Bureau explained that in accordance with the privatisation policy, workers of enterprises that were slated for privatisation were entitled to be allotted some percentage of the outstanding shares of the company.
It said in the case of the PHCN, the Bureau reserved 10 per cent of the balance of 40 per cent (four per cent) for workers of the successor companies.
The statement said the 10 per cent shares due to workers of the Power Companies would be allotted to them after the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission completes it assignment on the valuation of the investments done by the states in the distribution companies.
It added that the valuation would form the basis on which shares would be allotted to each state government.
Regarding the non-computation of 16 months’ entitlements of staff of the defunct PHCN, the Bureau said that during one of the engagements with the unions on January 13, 2014 at the Federal Ministry of Power, it was agreed that “7.5 percent employer pension contribution of July, 2012 to 31st October, 2013, will be paid by the Federal Government (Market Operator).”
It said though the decision had been communicated to the Market Operator, the Unions suggested that BPE should escalate the matter to the Vice President and the Chairman of the National Council on Privatisation for consideration and resolution.
It said that papers to the NCP on the matter were being completed.
On the post retirement training of the former PHCN staff, the BPE said there was a decision to conduct a post-retirement training for them but that the lack of cohension among the agencies that had the responsibility to organise the training was responsible for its non-implementation.
It added that as result of this, funding for the assignment was now in jeopardy.
