The Federal Government last week handed over the assets of the unbundled Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, simultaneously nationwide to private investors. Prior to the handing over last Friday, a meeting of stakeholders in the power sector presided over by Vice-President Namadi Sambo took place at the Presidential Villa.
At the end of the meeting, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Power, Godknows Igali disclosed that the government has paid a total of N294.51bn to 40,093 disengaged staff of the PHCN whose records have been validated. A breakdown of the amount showed that N214.22bn was paid as severance allowance while a total of N80.290bn was for pension and gratuity.
"The severance aspect goes directly to the account of the beneficiaries and a lot of them have confirmed that they have gotten the alert in their accounts. And those who have not gotten the alert it is because of the issues of banks that have not completed their processes but government has given orders to all banks concern to ensure all workers get the alert on their account. "For the gratuity payment, it goes to the pension fund custodian, they get the money and after that goes to the pension fund administrators.
So, the funds have left government and gone to the custodians and administrators of the various beneficiaries," Igali said. He explained that government had to take all necessary steps to certify that all those that are paid are authentic workers of PHCN so that the payment does not go to wrong persons.
Igali stated that the government had issues with 1,478 workers in the Enugu distribution company as their biometric capture got corrupted by virus, stressing that a consultant has moved to site to recapture them.
The Permanent Secretary further explained that an additional 929 other PHCN workers all around the country also had their biometric data corrupted because of the large number of people involved. Igali stated that those affected would soon be brought to Abuja at the expense of government to be recaptured.