The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Severance package

  • NNPC, EX-workers at war over N4b severance package 

    NNPC, EX-workers at war over N4b severance package 

    Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation ( NNPC) and 29 ex-casual workers of the Corporation are at loggerhead over N4 billion severance package.

    The ex-workers who were relieved of their jobs after working for the corporation as casual staff for hearts are seeking for the interventions of human right activists and other well meaning Nigerians to help them collect their N4 billion. 

    But NNPC management disagreed with their claims and advised them to go to court. 

    While expressing their frustration and haplessness, ex-workers said the Corporation management asked them to go to court, knowing fully well that they don’t have the financial muscle to hire a lawyer.

    Speaking with The Nation at the weekend in Abuja, the spokesman and also leader of the the disengaged causal workers of NNPC, Mr. Eze Ene and his assistant Okolo Barnabas, said they lack the means to engage lawyers to sue NNPC.

    Asked to tell the corporation’s part of the story on phone, the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu told The Nation that there is nothing like that nomenclature ‘casual staff’ in NNPC. 

    He described them as daily paid workers that NNPC must have engaged their services that should ordinarily leave when there was no need for their service.  

    The NNPC spokesman however advised that  “if you are making claims and assuming that there was something like that in NNPC and you believe that NNPC engaged your services and you were not paid, you go to court. It is as simple as that.”

    The disengaged staff however submitted that “we don’t have the means to engage lawyers and that is why we are calling on human right lawyers to come and help us and if there is anywhere we are found guilty the law should take its course. We don’t have money to take them to court. They have money. They are even saying they will be happy if we will go to court so that they will frustrate it.”

    The spokesman recalled that NNPC engaged them as casual staff in 1998 for its present day corporate headquarters in Abuja, while it was still operating from Lagos.
    According to them, “the then Group Admin Service department engaged some casual workers here in Abuja for them to arrange documents in the different departments.

    They also engaged people to receive furniture and equipment from suppliers like Julius Berger. Some of us were engaged and put in charge of partitioning. But finally in 2000 they resumed in Abuja. In June 2000 they gave us to whom it may concern and called us casual staff under group services admin of NNPC.”

    They said following the agitation of some of the senior casual workers NNPC regularized their appointments as contract and permanent staff in 2004.

    The group said that suddenly in 2005, NNPC started saying that it had no causal staff but daily paid workers while we were causal workers. They stressed that the various departments were calling them casual staff in their memo and not daily paid workers. 
    Consequently in 2009, the corporation was already owing the staff for nine months till date they have not been paid. 

    Lamenting, Ene said “They should pay us off for over 15 years because now we don’t know where to start life. In the existence of NNPC no casual staff has been set off without conversion.”

  • We didn’t ask for severance package from Buhari’s admnistration, says Shekarau

    A former Minister of Education, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, has said neither him nor some of his former colleagues asked for severance package from President Muhammadu Buhari.

    He said since they joined the administration of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan at a later date, they knew they would not benefit from severance allowance.

    Shekarau made the clarification in a statement through his Special Adviser on Media, Sule Yau Sule.

    The statement reads: “Malam, like his other counterparts in Jonathan’s cabinet did not request for severance package from this administration. Therefore , the question of their being refused does not arise.

    “For the avoidance of doubt and to set the records straight, the ministers who joined the Jonathan administration at a later date were aware they were not entitled to severance package since they did not meet the two-year benchmark.

    “They were aware of the extant laws on compensation as they affect public office holders and did not request to be paid what they were not entitled to, either while in office or after they left.

    “Therefore, the claim that the former ministers may forfeit their severance pay is both inaccurate and presumptuous.

    “It must be reiterated here that the primary motivation for Malam in accepting appointment into the Federal Executive Council was to serve this country for which he remains grateful and harbours no regrets.”

  • I can’t reveal my severance package, says NERC boss

    I can’t reveal my severance package, says NERC boss

    Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) Chairman Dr. Sam Amadi yesterday refused to reveal his emolument when asked at a news conference.

    Amadi, who convened the briefing to clarify the alleged approval of N2.7 billion to himself and his commissioners as severance package, said it would be irresponsible of any chief executive officer to mention his emolument.

    Such an act, he said, would not display leadership quality, urging reporters and concerned citizens to take advantage of the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) to ascertain the figure.

    Asked to state his personal emolument and that of his commissioners since he debunked the N2.7 billion claim, Amadi said: “I have the temptation to say it is X, but it will be irresponsible of me or anybody to disclose it. I don’t know anywhere in the world where chief executives or senior management or commissioners have said on air we earn this.

    “Even if you are earning N2,000, you don’t say it. Even in the most developed parts of the world, you don’t say it. What we do is what FoI Act has provided for you. If you want to know, you can put in a request and they will give it to you.  So, if I want to grandstand and say my salary is X, it is totally irresponsible. It is unnecessary. It doesn’t show leadership quality.”

    The commission, he said, was undergoing media and public opinion trial over the severance package report, some hackers penetrated the NERC website.

    The hackers, he said, posted a letter on the website that he (Amadi) was in the United Kingdom (UK) requesting the commissioner for Finance and Management Service to transfer some funds to him.

    He stressed that the commission would soon notify security agencies about the issue.

    Amadi said the electricity market is owing the commission N3 billion.

    “Everybody in this market is owed money, including NERC, because of issues around shortfall, revenue collection and all that,” he said.

     

     

     

  • Ex-legislative aides protest over N9b severance package

    Aides to members of the National Assembly yesterday protested their unpaid N9billion duty tour and severance allowances.

    No fewer than 3,000 former aides were yesterday represented at the National Assembly.

    The Acting Clerk of the National Assembly, Mr. Ben Efeturi, assured the protesters that everything would be done to address their concerns.

    Efeturi said the National Assembly’s management would not unduly cause them pains.

    The protesting aides were led to the office of the Acting Clerk by the Chairman of the South-West chapter of National Assembly Legislative Aides Forum (NASSLAF), Hon. Al-Maroof Yinka Ajibolu.

    According to Ajibolu, the aides were demanding to be paid Duty Tour Allowances (DTA) that have been due since April, last year.

    “We had to meet them over our delayed severance benefits and our unpaid DTA”, Ajibolu told The Nation shortly before the peaceful protest march to the Acting Clerk’s office..

    He also said the Severance Gratuity Allowance which ought to have been paid immediately after legislators received theirs about two months ago.

    Mr. Efeturi, who made futile efforts to reach the National Assembly’s Director of Finance and Accounts, Alhaji Lasisi Bukoye on telephone, gave assurances that he would ensure a meeting between the aggrieved aides’ leaders and Bukoye today.

    “They promised to pay the DTA, which ought to have been paid since April after legislators collected theirs but till date, the National Assembly management has kept quiet on the matter, knowing that we would be more focussed on the severance allowance.

    “They promised to pay the DTA, which ought to have been paid since April after legislators collected theirs but till date, the National Assembly management has kept quiet on the matter, knowing that we would be more focussed on the severance allowance”

    “Also, they ought to have paid us the severance allowance immediately after paying that of legislators but all that we are hearing is that some people are trying to figure out the best way to short-change us and ensure that we do not get our full entitlements.

    “Such problems have occurred in the past but this time, we are more than ready for them as we know that President Mohammadu Buhari and Speaker Dogara would bring down the full weight of the law on any of the officials who may be implicated in National Assembly shenanigans,” an aide, who requested anonymity, stated.

    On July 24, in response to The Nation’s enquiry, Bukoye blamed the delay in payment on paucity of funds.

    The outstanding  (DTA) being owed each of the approximately 3, 000 aides is about N75, 000.

    Also, in conformity with the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission’s stipulations, each of the five aides serving 109 Senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives is entitled to amounts ranging from N1 million to N4 million after four years’ service.

     

  • Payment of PHCN’s workers severance package hits N373b

    Payment of PHCN’s workers severance package hits N373b

    The National Council on Privatisation (NCP) yesterday said 46,744 out of the 47,913 bonafide workers, representing 98 per cent of the workforce of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) have been paid their entitlements amounting to N373, 170, 291,200.38.

    The NCP acknowledged the commendable progress achieved by the Implementation Committee on the payment of the severance, pension and gratuity of the workers and retirees of PHCN. It directed the Implementation Committee to  handover to BPE all information and documents concerning outstanding active workers and pensioners verifications and payments.

    In a statement endorsed  by Head of Public Communications, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Chigbo Anichebe, explained that the Council also directed that the process of verification and payment of all the outstanding cases should continue until the final resolution of the exercise.

    Briefing Council members, BPE Director-General, Mr. Benjamin Dikki told members at its meeting held in the Presidential Villa in April 16, that only 1,169 of the 47,913 workers of the defunct PHCN were  yet to be paid.

    Out of the outstanding number, the D-G said it included workers that had exited before severance payment; those being processed for validation; and those yet to be identified by PHCN as bonafide workers adding that  the working group was  looking into these  cases to arrive at a final closure.

    Further, Council noted that 2,791 retired workers of the PHCN  representing 65 per cent of the retirees had been paid  N16,414,926,902.38 with an outstanding number of 1,516 retirees who have so far failed to turn up for verification or were still undergoing further verification or their next of kin have not been able to produce the necessary court papers.

    It would be recalled that an Implementation Committee was constituted in March 2013, with the mandate to implement the agreement reached with the Power Sector Labour Unions in December 2012. The objective was to facilitate the payment of the entitlements of all workers of PHCN and  ensure that there are no encumberances to the handover of the successor companies to the respective investors.

  • Severance package: FG, PHCN union hold talks Tuesday

    Severance package: FG, PHCN union hold talks Tuesday

    The Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Companies in Power Holding Company of Nigeria on Monday said the Federal Government had invited the union for talks over the severance package.

    The President General of the association, Mr. Bede Opara, told News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos that the talks would hold in Abuja on Tuesday, March19.

    According to Opara, the invitation is to harmonise the report of implementation committee on the payment of the entitlement.

    He expressed optimism that the meeting would put an end to the lingering crisis between the PHCN workers and the Federal Government.

    NAN recalled that the workers had turned down the N45 billion earmarked by the government to pay the workers in phases beginning from May.

    The workers refused the government’s mode of payment and insisted on the outright payment of the entitlement amounting to N384 billion.

    This disagreement led the workers to hold a national prayer to seek God’s intervention in the matter on last Friday.

     

  • Sacked ExxonMobil workers cry for justice

    Sacked ExxonMobil workers cry for justice

    The 1,444 sacked workers of Exxon-Mobil have urged the National Assembly to assist in the efforts to get their terminal benefit.

    They lamented that the oil firm is inflicting injustice on them by refusing to pay about N11.4 billion, which is their entitlements.

    Addressing journalists in Abuja on Friday, the Registrar of the International Institute for Humanitarian and Environmental Law, Cyprian Edward-Ekpo, said a petition had been sent to the National Assembly for intervention.

    He lamented that the action of the company is a gross violation of human/labour rights of the people.

    Edward-Ekpo alleged that a peaceful protest by the disengaged staff to press home their demand was thwarted by the management of the company who sponsored the police to harass, arrest and torture them.

    According to him, the action of the firm undermines the Federal Government efforts that have led to the current relative peace in the Niger-Delta region.

    “It is highly despicable and condemnable that a service contract worker who has worked for ExxonMobil for over 30 years was offered N150,000 as end of service benefit.

    “May we quickly add that some members if this group were previously involved in militancy in the Niger Delta region, but as a result of the amnesty program and transformation agenda of the Federal Government, they laid down arms and engaged in meaningful occupation.

    “The consequences of ExxonMobil action by refusing to pay them their rightful entitlement shall certainly lead some of them to return to the creeks with its attendant negative consequences on the economy of the country,” Ekpo said.

    The group urged the National Assembly to invite and caution the oil firm.

     

  • PHCN workers reject N45b severance package

    PHCN workers reject N45b severance package

    … Boycott meeting with FG

    Workers in the Power Holding Company of Nigeria have asked the Federal Government to explain the reasons it now decided to pay N45 billion as their severance package against the N384 billion it earlier promised.

    The President General, Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Companies (SSAEAC), Mr. Bede Opara, made the demand in a chat with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Wednesday.

    Opara said the workers recently received a letter to that effect from the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE).

    He said the salary scale used in computing their gratuity was not the salary scale agreed with the Technical and Negotiation Team under the leadership of the Secretary to Government of the Federation.

    The SSAEAC president told NAN that the unions had nothing to negotiate with the government any more.

    He advised the Ministry of Power to ensure that all labour issues were addressed to enable the workers to get their entitlements in time.

    NAN reports that the unions, on Tuesday, boycotted the meeting of a committee set up by the ministry on the payment of severance benefits.

    The Minister, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, had announced that the committee would be inaugurated on Tuesday.

    “There is nothing to negotiate with the government again because we have finished negotiation since December 12, 2012.

    “What we think we are here for is the implementation of the agreement reached with the government’s representatives,” Opara stressed.

    He contended that the technical committee earlier set up on the matter should be allowed to continue its work.

    “The technical committee comprising Alexander Forbes, Bureau of Public Enterprises, PHCN and the in-house unions should be allowed to continue with their responsibility.

    “This committee will ensure that accurate amount is given to each PHCN worker at the end of the day,” he said.

     

  • FG, PHCN staff agree on severance package

    FG, PHCN staff agree on severance package

    Power Holding Company of Nigeria workers won a major battle on Tuesday midnight as the Federal Government agreed to sign an agreement with the workers’ representatives on the payment of their severance packages, pension and gratuity.

    Based on the agreement, a three- month salary in lieu of notice will be paid to all active employees of PHCN that had served for more than 10 years, while those that had been in service for less than 10 years will get one month salary.

    The disagreement over the workers’ severance package had remained the major setback in the privatization of the PHCN and the implementation of the Power Sector Reform Act 2005.

    The two parties had been involved in discussions and negotiations since May last year, with the aim of resolving the dispute.

    The Tuesday’s meeting took place in the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim.

    It was attended by Senator Anyim, Minister of State for Finance, Hajiya Zainab Kuchi, Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu and the acting Director General, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr. Benjamin Dikki, who signed on behalf of the Federal Government.

    Also in attendance were the President General, Trade Union Congress (TUC), Comrade Peter Esele , Deputy President, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Comrade Joe Ajaero, Deputy President, National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), Comrade Isaac Abegye and President, Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Companies (SSAEAC), Comrade Bede Opara.

    Comrade Opara signed for the PHCN workers.

    Chief Wogu, who read the agreement, said total accrued gratuity as at June 30, 2012 will be paid to the workers in accordance with defined scheme stipulated in the PHCN 2010 condition of service.

    He added that a 15 per cent pension contributions will be paid from July 1, 2007 through June 30, 2012 in accordance with the provisions of the Pension Act 2004.

    It was also agreed that repatriation allowance will be paid as five per cent of Annual Pensionable Emolument.