No plan to sack PHCN workers, Power Minister assures

• Says power supply to become stable Sept

 

Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, on Tuesday in Abuja assured that the Federal Government has no plans to lay off workers of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).

The plan instead, he explained, is to rather severe them from public service employment, to enable them migrate to the private sector.

Speaking at the second annual national workshop of the Chartered Institute of Brokers (CIS), he assured that all outstanding benefits to the workers would be paid to them by the end of July.

Nebo, who spoke on “Transformation Agenda: The Real Issues in the Power, Housing and Energy Sector of the Economy,” said the current PHCN workers would be retrained and made part of the new energy market or be engaged in other critical sectors of the economy.

He added that all bottlenecks to the current privatisation exercise were being resolved, adding that there has been several discussions “with union leaders, and have agreed on all the fundamentals of the labour issues, verification of over 44,000 workers and will soon commence payment of their severance benefits.”

Also, the minister assured investors in the sector of the safety of their investments as well as increased rate of return on investment, noting that the funds are needed to achieve the 40,000 megawatts target captured in the Vision 2020.

He added that the ministry of power is already in a process of self-reform to equip itself with the right competitiveness and capabilities to handle policy issues as well as ensuring a conducive environment for investments in the sector.

Also, speaking at the occasion, Director General, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Benjamin Dikki assured Nigerians of “drastic improvement” in power supply by September adding that power is will become stable by the first and second quarter of next year.

However, President/Chairman of Council, CIS, Muritala Olushekun said the institute had already commenced efforts at creating investable vehicles to access the pension assets but appealed for flexibility on the part of pencom.