Former political appointees, who served under the administration of former Governor Gabriel Suswam, have cried out to Governor Samuel Ortom for their severance allowance in the spirit of the Christmas.
The appointees, comprising Senior Special Assistants (SSA), Special Assistants (SA) and Personal Assistants (PA) pleaded that they be paid from the N12.7 billion London/Paris club refunds to enable them celebrate Christmas with their families.
A letter to the governor, signed by Julius Ali, who was a SSA on Community Relations to Suswam, begged Ortom to have mercy and pay them so they can celebrate the yuletide with their families.
He noted that the former governor chose to pay himself and members of his EXCO but ignore them, adding that nothing had been done to Ortom’s directive that their severance and furniture allowances be paid after verification.
“We believe if our plea gets to the governor, his humane disposition to our plight will make him order for the payment because we are suffering,” Ali said.
Tag: Severance pay
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Ex-appointees beg Ortom for severance pay
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Severance pay: Retired soldier begs Buhari to intervene
For 36 years and 200 days, he served the Nigerian Army. He had looked forward to the day he would retire and enjoy his retirement benefit but unknown to Mr. Stephen Aigbe, it was not to be so. Aigbe, a master warrant officer, with code number 63NA/358082, who had retired due to old age, was later charged for mutiny alongside others.
According to the frail-looking former army officer who treks around everyday, he disclosed that he was not arraigned for years, but kept at an Army barracks confinement for a decade. This was after he had been evicted from what he called ‘his legal barracks accomodation’ and his property confiscated.
According to Stephen, “the offence of mutiny charge is not amenable to summary trial, which made my summary trial a contrary issue to Armed Forces laws and these facts can be verified to the level of decadence, injustice and obnoxious practices in the Nigerian Army and this fact has been a continued source of my mental and emotional agony.
His family are said to have abandoned him. He, however, narrated how lawyers came to his rescue. “It was some lawyers who saw my deplorable and depleting condition that assisted me to get my disengagement certificate of service from the Nigerian Armed Forces Ressetlement Centre, Oshodi, Lagos. It is the only key document that will enable me process and collect my severance pay from the Army,” he lamented.
Begging President Muhammadu Buhari to help him, Stephen alleged that “there are secret plans to prevent me from getting my severance pay and put me in some form of anguish and pains that will kill me quickly in the interest of some military hierarchy even now that the commander of command army records has finally released and issued me an authentic discharged certificate,” he cried.
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Reps, NERC disagree over N2.7bn alleged severance pay
Members of the House of Representatives Committee on Power and the National Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC) were at loggerheads Tuesday over the alleged approval of N2.7 billion as severance for the Chairman and commissioners in the establishment.
The drama occurred during the investigative hearing into the alleged plan by board members to pay themselves N2.7 billion as severance package at the end of their five- tenure expiring end of December.
While the committee headed by Daniel Effiong insisted that the NERC breached the Act establishing it and other laws including the Pension Act, Sam Amadi, the Chairman of NERC insisted that they did the right thing as the Act establishing the NERC gives them the prerogative to set their renumeration including severance for staff.
The House had on Wednesday 4th November mandated its Power Committee investigate the planned payment of N2.7 Billion severance to NERC board members.
The lawmakers said NERC board fixed its enumeration package for commissioners and staff without the input of National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission, adding that besides this, the organisation fixed an upward review of its enumeration package for commissioners and staff unilaterally even beyond the scope of the Income and Wages Commission’s benchmark.
The committee members wanted know why N2.7 billion was immediately transferred on the 5th of May after a board resolution on 16th of April 2015 from Unity Bank. And why NERC now sent a letter to PENCOM in October for guidance for an act executed in May.
“Do staff earn severance? Where is the money from? Is it a monthly contribution?” Committee members wanted to know.
Amadi lamented that the issue of a N2.7 billion severance package was caused by a case of “reckless reportage” by a newspaper, adding that they would be suing the paper for libel.
“Some reckless reporting has created the situation. Its libelous. We did not approve to pay ourselves 2. 7 billion,” he said.
He said the amount was the total amount for 131 staff plus seven commissioners. “The amount is the evaluation of what we need to put in the sinking fund. Right now, only 11 members have benefitted.”
The lawmakers also wanted to know the genesis of the upward review of the gratuity of retiring members of NERC board from a 2006 benchmark of 300 percent of basic salary to 120 percent of gross overall earnings in 2014.
They demanded to know the amount board members would be paid at the end of their five year tenure.
But Amadi declined to publicly declare the answers saying its in the document before the lawmakers.
However, Richard Egbule, chairman of the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission, compounded Amadi’s case when he declared to the committee that his commission did not approve the introduction of a severance package for NERC board members.
He said NERC board members, according to the Act which guides the Wages commission, are not qualified for severance packages.
However, as the session was ongoing, the Minister for Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola appeared before the Committee briefly.
The committee members however granted his request for more time to make a proper presentation on the oversight functions of the Ministry on NERC since the un-bundling of the power sector.
Fashola, who was earlier represented by Bolanle Laditan, Director of Electricity Reform Coordination, told the lawmakers that heads of agencies and departments within the ministry were still briefing him on issues affecting the ministry.
He was given a week by the committee to represent the position of the ministry.
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BPE pays 45,136 ex-PHCN staff N370b severance pay
The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) said it has remitted to the Office of the Account-General of the Federation (OAGF) a total of N370billion for payment of the severance benefits of former employees of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
The Director-General of the BPE, Mr. Benjamin Ezra Dikki, who made the statement during a media chat to unveil the agency’s 2014 work plan in Abuja, said the committee chaired by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Power, has verified to date 45,136 staff for payment out of 47,913 staff.
He noted that after the Bureau’s nationwide field verification of the possible 4,194 PHCN retirees, 2,931 or their next of kin have been verified, leaving 1,163 yet to be verified.
He said the verification committee and the Bureau were making extra effort to ensure that the outstanding pensioners were verified and paid their entitlements expeditiously.
The BPE boss advised the pensioners or their next of kin who had not been verified to do so before Wednesday 2nd April 2014.
He said that out of the earlier 47,913 staff list obtained from PHCN, 45,136 verified staff entitlements have been cash-backed to the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation for payment.
Dikki explained that 338 on the retirees list were exited staff, while 21 were cases of duplication. He stated that 262 cases were currently being processed and 551 had already been recommended for validation by the Verification Committee on Payment of PHCN Severance Payment following a nationwide verification exercise.
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N342.8b ready for 40,093 PHCN workers’ severance pay
All is set for the payment of severance packages to 40,093 Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) workers. Their names have been sent to the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) for payment, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has said.
The BPE, in a statement by its spokesman Chigbo Anichebe, said the action was line with the government’s commitment to settling the workers’ outstanding payment and ensuring the smooth take off of the PHCN’s successor companies.
It said N342.8billion had been released to the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation for the payment.
Speaking at a forum in Abuja, BPE’s Director-General Benjamin Ezra Dikki said the figure represented payment to 84 per cent of the entire workforce of the former state-owned electricity giant.
Dikki, who was represented by the BPE’s Project Manager (PM), Electric Power Department, Mr. Amaechi Aloke, said of the six batches, the OAGF had confirmed the payment of three, totalling 26,899 persons.
He said OAGF promised that two more batches (4 and 5) covering 11,716 workers would be paid their entitlements next week.
On union dues, the DG said that the OAGF had confirmed the remittance of N3bn to the two PHCN unions-the Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Companies, (SSAEAC) and National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), deducted from the PHCN workers’ benefits.
Interest groups, such as the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), the Senior Staff Association of Power Holding Company of Nigeria, among others, have protested against the late payment of the severance package of PHCN workers.
They threatened to scuttle PHCN’s privatisation, if the government failed to address the problem. To avert crisis, the government decided to settle the workers’ outstanding ahead of January 2014 when the Transitional Electricity Market (TEM) will take off.
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Family rejects N2.5m severance pay for Kaduna ex-deputy governor
The family of the late Deputy Governor Stephen Shekari has rejected the N2.5 million severance pay from the government, eight years after his death, The Nation learnt yesterday.
Shekari, who served under former Governor Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi between 1999 and 2005, died at an Israeli hospital on July 10, 2005, of an undisclosed ailment.
In a letter to the family, dated January 22, 2007 and signed by Nurudeen Ibrahim on behalf of the Commissioner for Economic Planning, the government said it paid the late Shekari N2.5 million.
The money was said to be the late Shekari’s total severance gratuity. It was paid through a Unity Bank cheque, which the family rejected and returned to the government.
In a letter to Governor Mukthar Ramalan Yero by Mrs. Charity Shekari, Mrs. Saratu Shekari and Yakubu Shekari, the three administrators to Shekari’s estate, the family urged the government to revisit the benefit/entitlement of their father and ensure that it is paid.
The letter, dated March 14, 2013, was received the following day at the Governor’s Office.
It reads: “The government, on February 26, 2007, paid us N2.5 million as benefits/entitlement of our late husband and father.
“We returned the cheque because we did not agree that N2.5 million could be the benefits/entitlement of a deputy governor, who had served the state for six and a half years and died in active service… and to inform Your Excellency that we have not received any form of benefits/entitlement since the death of our husband and father.”
“There is need to make us feel a part of your government, especially as our breadwinner, who served this state and country faithfully, has neither been rewarded nor his benefits/entitlements paid to his family.
“We hesitate to say, even the oldest utility vehicle was taken away from us; we were not given the opportunity to repurchase any private security car, as is the tradition with government. We know Your Excellency will honour Stephen Shekari by looking into this issue positively.
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‘PHCN workers to receive severance pay soon’
Senior Staff of Allied and Electricity Corporation (SSAEC) on Tuesday confirmed that the 54,000 workers in the electricity sector would soon receive their severance pay.
The SSAEC President, Mr. Bede Opara, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the Federal Government and labour had reached an agreement on payment of the workers entitlements.
Opara did not disclose the total sum that would be paid to the workers.
”The total amount cannot be mentioned now because lot of things had happened. Many people had retired and some of the workers had changed department so the money that will be paid has also been affected.
”Labour and government are contented with whatever that will be paid to the workers if the government implement as agreed, there will be no problem.”
The unionist said that labour had agreed with the government that as soon as the money was paid, the investors would take over the plants.
Opara said that the ongoing verification exercise in the PHCN would be concluded on June 29 since the workers had gone through their pay advice, verified and signed it.
He noted that if there were lapses, such as omission of names, the verification would be extended to ensure that everybody was captured.
The union president also said that the issue of casual workers had been cleared as they had been verified to ensure that they got their money.
He also said that the workers had contacted different Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) that would handle the money.