Reason ex-PHCN staff have not been paid —FG •Reps express concern over PHCN privatisation Written by Jacob Segun Olatunji, Leon Usigbe and Kolawole Daniel - Abuja Friday, 27 September 2013 00:00 font size Print Email Be the first to comment! раскрутка сайтов THE Federal Government has explained the reason for delay in the payment of severance benefits of disengaged staff of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) ahead its handover to successor companies, saying it was because of the need to ensure avoidable mistakes are not made. This, according to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Power, Mr Godknows Igali, who spoke in a chat with state house correspondents after a meeting with Vice President Namadi Sambo in state house, Abuja, on Thursday. He said, however, that despite the delay in the payment, progress had been made as all labour-related issues were poised to be resolved before the formal handing over of the company to the new owners. The National Council on Privatisation resolved, last week, that all the outstanding entitlements of all former staff should be cleared between September 23 and 27. Confident that the handover will be performed, Igali said: “There is progress in the handing over of the 10 distribution companies and four generating companies. We are in the last stage. There will be formal ceremony which will take place, with handing over of the documents to the new owners. “There will be no physical handing over until towards the end of this year. We are starting with handing over of the formal documents, which the protocol, ceremony for Mr President will preside over, after which we have one month to undertake all issues. “We are making progress at ensuring all workers are paid. When you are dealing with paying of workforce of about 40,000 people, you have to be careful, because it is not something you rush into. “So, we think that when the formal handover of the documents is done, we still have another one month to ensure we look into claims before the final physical take-off.” The permanent secretary explained that Thursday’s meeting with the vice president was part of a periodic review of progress of work on the power plants, noting the need to deal with issues of steady supply of gas to the plants, the first of which, he said was expected to come on by the first quarter of 2014. Noting that Nigerians should be optimistic, Igali added that possibility existed that formal starting of the first engine of cardinal power plant would take place in March 2014, observing that implementation of the present administration’s power masterplan was encouraging. He added: “All things are going on very well. Let’s be optimistic. With other sectors the private sector took over, there is an exponential change in the sector. We saw it in telecommunications. You all were here when it took a day to make a call before the private sector took over. “In the banking sector, when you went to banks then, you queue up for almost a whole day, taking a tally to wait, but today, you can stay in your office and perform banking transactions, because the private sector took over. “In the power sector, the government has gone to the private sector and the private sector has shown strong and robust commitment to this country. Despite the fact that we still have power outages, the private sector has shown commitment that it was committed to work together with the government. “Everybody around the world said it would not work; that in Nigeria, nobody buys assets. But, there are Nigerian businessmen, who teamed up with bankers to buy these assets and want to bring to bare dynamism and effectiveness of the private sector. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives, on Thursday, expressed concern over privatisation of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, saying the executive arm of government failed to carry along the National Assembly in the exercise. Chairman, House Committee on Power, Honourable Patrick Ikharieale, who expressed this reservation during oversight function to the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Niger Delta Public Holding, Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), National Power Training Institute of Nigeria (NAPTIN), among others, saying privatisation of the PHCN ought to be carried out in phases. The chairman, however, cautioned that beyond privatisation of the PHCN, there should be due diligence on the privatisation and operations of the companies that eventually bought into the sector, in order to ensure improvement in power supply. According to him: “We believe and have supported the privatisation exercise. There is nothing that could done now, but some of us have reservation on the wholesome, that is, generation, distribution and transmission. We think it should be a gradual thing, but wholesale privatisation calls for serious concern.” The chairman, who led other members of the committee on the oversight function, said: “We noticed that the exercise lacked funding; I remembered that when the exercise started, we advocated for more funding, but they said no need, but now, they are spending money for the exercise.” To this end, he promised that the House would continuously engage the power sector in ensuring that the ambition of the Federal Government in achieving Millennium Development Goal on power improvement was achieved. He maintained that: “We cannot afford to shift goal post middle of the game. So, there is need for the relevant agencies saddled with the responsibility of privatisation of PHCN started with transparency in the transaction, therefore, the transparency of the transaction has to be till the end of the exercise.” At the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), the acting Director-General of BPE, Alhaji Kashim Ibrahim, told the committee members that, “the ambition of the Federal Government is to meet and improve generation 20,000MW by 2018. This required an investment in power generating capacity alone of at least $3.5 billion per annum for the next 10 years. In addition, large investments will also have to be made in power transmission and distribution. The successful privatization of the successor companies is a major step forward in the achievement of the government’s ambitious agenda. The sustained involvement of the private sector is required if we are to achieve our goals”.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Sep 2013 05:46:47 +0000
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