Members of the National Union of Electricity Employees of Nigeria on Thursday stormed the office of Bureau of Public Enterprises in Abuja to protest the failure of the Federal Government to pay the severance allowances of over 1,000 workers of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria.

Following the privatisation of the successor companies carved out of the PHCN, the Federal Government paid off the workers’ entitlements as the management of the companies moved to private sector operators.

Despite the conclusion of the process, 1,169 of the workers have not been paid.

The National President, NUEE, Mr. Mansur Musa, who decried the non-payment of the severance benefits to some of the workers, said this had brought untold hardship to them.

Responding, the Director-General, BPE, Mr. Benjamin Dikki, said 46,744 out of the 47,913 bona-fide workers of the defunct PHCN, representing 98 per cent of them, had so far been paid their entitlements amounting to N373.17bn.

Dikki said only 1,169 workers of the defunct PHCN were yet to be paid.

He said the outstanding number included workers that had left before the severance payment began; those being processed for validation; and those yet to be identified by the PHCN as bona-fide workers and thus not verified.

The BPE boss further said that 2,791 retired staff members of the PHCN, representing 65 per cent of the retirees, had been paid N16.41bn, with an outstanding number of 1,516 retirees.

According to him, the number is made up of those who have so far failed to turn up for verification; those still undergoing further verification and the next of kin of deceased staff members who have so far not been able to produce the letters of administration.

Dikki said for the active staff members, the number of beneficiaries was processed in 30 batches, while for the retirees, it was done in 11 batches.

He appealed to the over 1,000 workers of the PHCN who had not presented themselves for verification to come forward for the exercise as the government would not pay any one who was not verified.

On the issue of next of kin, the Dikki urged the union officials to assist those who had yet to get the appropriate court papers for payment to obtain them for seamless processing of their entitlements.

He told the union members that many government agencies were involved in the payment of their entitlements, which required such agencies applying their processes in executing the task.

Dikki assured the union that to quicken the payment to those who had yet to benefit, a committee to be made up of representatives of the union and the BPE would be constituted to sort out the issues.