Private investors are to determine the fate of workers of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria and its 17 successor companies, the Federal Government has said.
The Head of Public Communications, Bureau of Public Enterprises, Mr. Chigbo Anichebe, disclosed this in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents in Abuja on Monday.
The BPE had reportedly issued a letter to the chief executives of the power companies to submit names of 20,000 workers to be retrenched before the takeover of the firms by the successful private sector investors that won the bids for their sale.
Denying the allegation, Anichebe said the agency had never been responsible for the sacking of workers in any entity that it had privatised.
Anichebe added that the delay in paying the benefits accruing to the workers was as a result of their failure to submit their bank account numbers and Retirement Savings Account numbers.
Similarly, the Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, said neither the Federal Ministry of Power nor the BPE issued the directive that 20,000 workers should be retrenched.
Speaking through his Special Adviser on Media, Ms. Kande Daniel, the minister described as unfortunate the allegation of nocturnal meetings between the Federal Government and CEOs of PHCN successor companies.
According to Nebo, most of the officials cited in the report were on an official assignment outside the country.
He said funds for the payment of the workers’ severance package were ready and that in a matter of weeks, the workers would be paid as part of the process of the takeover of the companies by private investors.
0 comments:
Post a Comment