PHCN: Uncertainties as Negotiation Committee Flunks 3-Weeks Deadline

 

Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo

Chineme Okafor

Thirty nine days after it was set up and 18 days after expiration of its task deadline, the Severance Package Negotiation Committee of the Federal Government and labour unions in the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) is yet to turn in its report. This is eliciting concerns that various entrenched interests might have hijacked the negotiation and prevented it from progressing.

The committee was set up on March 19, to amongst other objectives, seek honest and swift processes for the settlement of severance packages due to workers of PHCN as well as approaches to fast-track proceedings in the privatisation of PHCN with regards to labour relation.

But the failure of the committee to achieve truce within an agreed three weeks task deadline has created uncertainties in the swift settlement of the workers’ severance packages.

THISDAY gathered that chief amongst challenges in arriving at a conclusion was governments’ disagreement with the union on modalities of pension remittance. The government has insisted that it would adhere to extant provisions in the Pension Reform Act 2004 in the pension remittance, but this has been disapproved by the labour union.

Although Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, recently confirmed that negotiation with the unions were at advanced stages and that substantial agreements had been reached, sources said the disagreement on the modalities for remitting the pensions may stall the negotiations.

“They have done a substantial amount of the work, in fact, even to the point of calculating one by one what it is all going to take but the problems on ground are very few and minor because the government side insists that whatever is done will not go beyond the constitutional provisions and the union representatives feel that it is not right and they should be treated separately but all of us know that if we want to treat them separately, then we are setting a precedent.

The government said the PenCom Act gives stipulations as to how things are going to be done and if you do not do it that way, then we will be doing things that are inimical and could be sued.

“Litigation could result from that and other unions might begin to complain and before you know it the entire legal system is being attacked from every angle and that is why we are appealing to the union to understand that we cannot go beyond what the constitution recommends. Government is insisting on adhering to the PenCom Act and has to, otherwise if you do anything other than that, it is illegal and the unions really know because we cannot bend the rules for the PHCN workers, almost everything here has been agreed,” Nebo had said.

 

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