About 48,000 disengaged staff of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) have engaged the services of a law firm to get their six years unpaid entitlements from the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE).
Speaking with journalists in Bauchi, the spokesperson of the Disengaged PHCN Staff Forum, Hassan Musa Gar, said the BPE has refused to pay them their disengagement and other benefits six years after the privatisation of the public owned power company.
He said the failure of BPE to pay the entitlements prompted their decision to engage the services of Barrister Emmanuel Okere, an Abuja-based law firm to pursue the payment of their entitlements.
According to him, the unpaid entitlements being owed them include 7.5 percent of federal government’s contribution of their pensions, arrears for personal/individual contributions for 16 months, 10 percent equity share ‘as required by law’ and pre-retirement training allowances.
He dismissed the reports in some national dailies that coordinators of the forum of disengaged staff were scamming the former employees by collecting the sum of N1,000 from for verification.
Gar informed that the forum was not conducting verification but is collecting signatures of the affected former workers of the company to authorize the law firm fight for their rights.
He said the N1,000 being contributed is for logistics and facilitation fees for the legal action being taken against the BPE since the PHCN trade union and other relevant stakeholders have failed to fight for them.
He further informed that the Forum is voluntary as no member was forced to join or partake in the move to engage the services of the law firm.
It could be recalled that the disengaged staff had about a month ago held a demonstration in Bauchi to press for their demands over unpaid entitlements.
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