The new owner of Benin Distribution Company, Vigeo Power Limited, is planning to weed out indolent, poor and fraudulent staff of defunct Power Holding Company Nigeria, PHCN. A member of the management of the new company disclosed this to our correspondent in Benin yesterday.
Although the move is causing panic among PHCN workers transferred to the new company, the Principal Manager (Public Affairs), Benin Distribution Company, Mr. Babatunde Fadipe, could not confirm the story.
Fadipe, who said he was not competent to speak on the issue, referred our correspondent to the Chairman of the company, Mr. Gbolade Osibodu. He said: "I am not competent to speak to you on the question that you are asking me now. I have not been briefed by the management to speak on an issue like this.
Once I get a briefing on the issue, I will brief you appropriately." But the source, who did not want his name in print, disclosed that more than 60 per cent of the workers would be relieved of their duties.
Earlier, President Goodluck Jonathanm had said the handing over of the distribution companies, DISCOs, and generating companies, GENCOs, to new investors would bring about the total development of the power sector in particular and the Nigerian economy in general within the shortest possible time.
But private sector business experts said such a high expectation was only realisable when the buyers or investors balanced their books carefully without unnecessarily exploiting consumers, many of whom had said they were being forced to pay for services not rendered. Osibodu subtly hinted at the mass sack in his address during the handover ceremony.
