FG Spent N409.91bn To Settle Ex-PHCN Workers—-BPE

The Federal Government has so far spent N409.91bn on the payment of severance benefits to ex-workers and death benefits of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria, the Bureau of Public Enterprises has said.

 
In a statement signed by the Bureau’s Head of Public Communications, Mrs. Amina Othman Tukur, she said the payment streams were categorized into two.

They are 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, the total numbers submitted to the BPE by PHCN was 47, 913 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 said in the statement that 25 workers have been audited and are awaiting cash-backing, nine of them with initial documentation problems will soon be audited; while  23 of the ex-PHCN workers have documentation problems.

 
The statement noted that in the course of the verification,  81 cases were found to be short-paid which have been corrected  and cash-backed while 180 cases recently treated and recomputed for  short–payment are awaiting  cash backing.

 
The Statement further stated that 4,438 PHCN Retirees/Next of Kins have been submitted to BPE in eight batches, adding that to date, 3,131 representing, 71 per cent of the beneficiaries have been fully paid their entitlements while 1,307 have yet to be paid.

On the two percent 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 has already written to the Accountant General of the Federation to credit the Unions’ Account  for the remaining deductions.

 
In terms of the ten 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 are slated for privatisation are entitled to be allotted some percentage of the outstanding shares of  the company.

It said in the case of the PHCN, the Bureau reserved ten per cent of the balance of 40 per cent (four percent) for workers of the successor companies.

 
The statement said the ten 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 will 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 are 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 organize the training  was responsible for its  non-implementation.

It added that  as result of this, funding for the assignment is now in jeopardy.

 
The BPE added in the statement that some of the ex-workers and pensioners/NOKs are having difficulties to access their entitlements since 2013 when their payments were cash-backed due to invalid account details.

It listed some of the errors to include  Non-nuban account numbers, wrong account names/numbers, wrong bank names.

The Bureau and the National Pension Commission are working to resolve these problems.