FG spends N409bn to settle ex-PHCN workers-BPE

The federal government has so far 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, Mrs. Amina Othman Tukur, the payment streams were categorized into two:

·        Severance payments  to former active staff of PHCN

·        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, the total number submitted to the BPE by PHCN was 47, 913 and out of the number, 47,275 representing 99 percent have been fully paid. These were forwarded to the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) for payment in 36 batches.

BPE said out of 638 outstanding active staff, there are:

a)   167 duplicate and blank spaces on the list

b)   414 never turned up for verification

c)    25 have been audited and are awaiting cash-backing

d)   9 with initial documentation problems will soon be audited; and

e)    23 have documentation problems.

The statement notes 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 said:

“ 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 error in serial numbering, 66 possible duplicates in submissions which   14 of them have   been   recently audited; and

“ 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.”

On the two per cent Union deductions, the Bureau said a total of  N7,485,291,722.89  has already been  paid to the defunct PHCN  Unions account from batches 1-36, while the Bureau has  already written to the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) to credit the Unions’ Account  for the remaining deductions.

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