Ex-PHCN Workers’ Severance Benefits Gulp N409.9bn – BPE
The Federal Government spent N409,915,331,675.45 on the payment of severance benefits to ex-workers and death benefits of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has said.
In a statement signed by the Bureau’s Head of Public Communications, Amina Othman Tukur, the BPE categorised the payment streams into two: severance payments to the former active staff of PHCN, and the payment of PHCN retirees/death benefits which PHCN could not pay before it handed over to the successor companies.
The BPE confirmed that 47,275 former employees had been fully paid out of the total number of 47,913 submitted by PHCN, representing 99 per cent.
It explained the list of the ex-employees were forwarded to the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) for payment in 36 batches.
Of the outstanding of 638 former workers, it said 167 are duplicate and blank spaces on the list, 414 never turned up for verification, 25 have been audited and are awaiting cash-backing, 9 with initial documentation problems will soon be audited, and 23 have documentation problems.
The Statement further said, “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.
“4,438 PHCN Retirees/NOKs have been submitted to BPE in eight batches and to date, 3,131 representing 71 per cent of the beneficiaries have been fully paid their entitlements with 1,307 yet to be paid. This is as a result of 15 of them having an error in serial numbering, 66 possible duplicates in submissions which 14 of them have recently been audited, 196 have been cleared and are awaiting cash-backing, 392 cleared and sent to the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) for pension-related benefits, and 694 to the Presidential Initiative for Continuous Auditing (PICA) for Gratuities and Deceased Benefits.
“A total of N7,485,291,722.89 has already been paid to the defunct PHCN Unions account from batches 1 – 36. The Bureau has already written to the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) to credit the Unions’ Account for the remaining deductions.
“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 which in the case of the PHCN. The Bureau has reserved 10 per cent of the balance of 40 per cent (4 per cent) for workers of the successor companies.
“The Ten (10) per cent shares due to workers of the Power Companies will be allotted to them after the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) completes its assignment on the valuation of the investments done by the State in the distribution companies. The valuation will form the basis on which shares will be allotted to each State Government.”
On the training of the former PHCN staff, BPE said there was a decision to conduct a post-retirement training for them but that the lack of cohesion among the agencies that had the responsibility to organize the training has caused the non-implementation.
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