About 40,093 workers of the erstwhile Power Holding
Company of Nigeria (PHCN) have been paid by the Federal Government as part of
the handing over process of power installations to new investors.
This is according to the Minister of
Power, Professor Chinedo Nebo, who said this while receiving the Donor
Coordinating Group, led by the UNIDO Representative, Dr Patrick Kormawa, who
paid him a visit in Abuja, on Monday.
He added that additional 5,000 cases
needed verification.
Nebo said that the Federal Government
was bent on ensuring that there was no impediment in the planned formal
physical handover of power assets to the private owners, adding the government
had achieved 90 per cent success in the payment of the workers’ severance
packages.
The minister described as critical
the advice and support provided to all the arms of the power sector –
regulatory, policy, executive, and technical, among others, to ensure a
seamless privatization exercise.
He said that government would not
allow unpatriotic individuals derail the process in transition, but would
rather do all within its power to ensure that the objective of privatisation
was accomplished.
The professor applauded the
contributions of donor agencies in the on-going privatisation of the sector,
adding that the exercise would have experienced more hiccups, but for the
expertise, foresight and doggedness of these partners.
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