Workers’ entitlements to gulp PHCN sale proceeds— BPE boss OCTOBER 20, 2013 BY OKECHUKWU NNODIM Director General, Bureau of Public Enterprises, Benjamin Ezra Dikki All entitlements of workers of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria have been provided by the Federal Government, the Director-General, Bureau of Public Enterprises, Mr. Benjamin Dikki tells OKECHUKWU NNODIM in this interview There have been speculations that the Federal Government would not handover the privatised power firms to its new owners on November 1 as announced recently. Is this true? The official handing over date will be announced appropriately. We are meeting to review issues. If we think the issues that need to be addressed have been properly addressed and that a handover can take place before or after November 1, we will announce it. We are reviewing the issues and we want to make sure that the handover is done when all the critical issues such as labour are properly addressed. We will meet with the relevant stakeholders, access the progress of the payment exercise, and find out if the bulk of the staffers have received their alert for the severance package and the pension pay out. When we meet to access the situation and we think all the critical issues have been properly addressed, then we will announce when we will do the formal handover. The formal handover is ceremonial. It is when we want to announce to the public that this is the end of government era of running the power sector; and the beginning of a new era of power being run by the private sector. It is a public event which cannot be done in secret. Labour union members are apprehensive. Some are still saying that the Federal Government is not sincere about the whole process. What is your take on this? I want to assure every staff of PHCN, whether they are permanent staff or casual staff, that the Federal Government signed an agreement with labour to address all their entitlements. Government has provided all the money and we have transferred the money to the Office of the Accountant-General. The accountant-general is working towards effecting transfer to every staffs’ RSA account. Already, all of them have received 25 per cent of the payment. If government was not going to pay them, why pay part? What is left now is the balance that will be migrated to their Retirement Savings Accounts. And government has made a commitment to do it. The funds have been moved to the accountant-general’s office. They can go and verify this. It is now a question of details of remitting to their respective RSA accounts and the Office of the Accountant-General is working round the clock to ensure this is done. I want to assure every one of them that this will be done soon. Are there other issues stretching this process, considering that fact that the process has been on for a long time? I want to flag out that there are some people that have issues. The total number of staff is between 47,000 and 49,000. We have cleared, verified and audited 38,000 with biometric capture and all the details. For these ones, their money is in the process, if they have not already received it, of being credited to their retirement savings account. But there are about 6,000 of them who have one issue or the other. Some of them raised issues about the computation of their entitlements. Please explain some of these issues We calculated all the entitlements of every PHCN staff and gave them a benefit statement. So Mr. XYZ, you were appointed on this day and your salary level is this; your entitlement is that. Your gratuity is this and your repatriation is that. We gave them detailed breakdown of all their entitlements and this was given to each member of staff. The member of staff will verify, go through the computation and be satisfied that it is correct and sign it. It is those who have done so that makes up this 38,000. There are those who have signed on their payroll that the computation is correct; that every detail concerning their date of employment and others were properly calculated. For these ones, we have transferred all the funds to the accountant-general to pay them. About 6,000 have a couple of issues. Some of them are complaining that the dates of engagement or promotion and other such details are not correct. So we now say, let us interact so that we can verify that. There are some whose identities are different from the identities we have in our records. So we are now trying to find out how come; because whoever we finalise his statement, we have his picture on it – the biometric capture, finger prints and so on. So these are the aspects that we are doing minor verifications and as soon as we clarify them, we will pay them. There is also the issue of the casuals who are to be regularised. Now, there has been some delay in the regularisation because initially labour told them not to cooperate. Labour at one point said they should not interact with government until they get directive and this delayed the process of doing the biometric capture. We have done some; others were afraid and did not come forth. But now we are putting a new process to do a biometric capture of all those casual workers. Is there any contribution needed from the PHCN companies as touching these affected workers? We need information from the PHCN companies themselves to give us the information on these casuals and then we will capture them. Everything is in place to ensure that everybody who is entitled to be paid will be paid. Those who are having one issue or the other, we are handling them and as soon as we clarify anyone, we send their name to the accountant-generals’ office. So there is absolutely no reason for apprehension on the part of labour. Labour can verify these things that I am saying. I am not talking something abstract. Labour can go to the accountant-general’s office to verify these things instead of overheating the system by making sweeping statements. Labour is a stakeholder in this thing and they should also make this thing succeed. We have given them the list of about 6,000 workers that have issues and we have distributed this list to the CEOs of the successor companies. We also told them to inform those that are affected. The money is there. Whoever that goes through the verification process will be paid. Is the government going to use all the proceeds from sale of the power firms to settle the workers? Virtually all of it is going to labour payment and this has been communicated to labour from day one that the proceeds of the sales are going to be used to address their concerns. There are many ways of corroborating this information. You can go and verify. BPE has remitted the money to the accountant-general’s office. The account- general’s office is in the process of remitting the money to their individual RSA accounts. I don’t see what is hidden in this thing that should result in apprehension. They can follow the audit trail to see that action has been taken. They can come to my office and ask me, Mr. Dikki have you remitted the money and I will show them the evidence of remittance plus the confirmation from the banks. Go to the accountant-generals’ office, they have also made remittances to the banks and if they need proofs they will get these proofs. So if there are a few of them that still have issues, the issues will be resolved. It does not call for apprehension.
Posted on: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 08:37:07 +0000
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