N342.8bn Released for Payment of 40,093 PHCN Workers ,Says BPE

Forty Thousand and Ninety-Three (40,093) workers of the Power Holding Company of
Nigeria (PHCN) have so far been cleared and forwarded to the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) for payment in the on-going exercise for the payment of severance benefits to the workers, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has announced. Similarly, BPE revealed in a statement by Chigbo Anichebe,head, public communications that it had released a total of N342.8bn to the OAGF for the payment.
Giving an update on the exercise at the weekend in Abuja while addressing Transitional Chairmen of the PHCN Successor Companies, the Director General of BPE, Mr. Benjamin Ezra Dikki said the figures represented payment to 84 percent of the entire workforce of the former state monopoly.
He said the schedules of payments which were transferred to the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation by the Bureau of Public Enterprises in six batches, cuts across workers at the PHCN Headquarters, the Generation Companies (GENCOs), Distribution Companies (DISCOs) and the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).
Dikki who was represented by the Project Manager (PM) Electric Power Department of
the Bureau, Mr. Amaechi Aloke said that out of the six batches, the OAGF had confirmed the payment of three, totaling 26,899 persons.”The payment covers the severance benefits and RSA components”, he added.The DG maintained that the OAGF had assured that by next week, another two batches (4 and 5), totaling 11,716 workers would be paid their entitlements.
On union dues, the DG said that the OAGF has 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.
It will be recalled that the federal government had demonstrated great commitment in resolving labour issues in the power sector reform and privatization. Apart from
committing the entire proceeds realized from the sale of power assets to the payment of the workers’ terminal benefits, government had at the initial stage of the transaction, released N57bn to take care of the workers pension. This was coming after the government had increased the workers’ salary by 50 percent and regularized some of the casual workers