The National Union of Electricity Employees, (NUEE) has warned against sacking workers of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, (PHCN) without paying their entitlements.

General Secretary of NUEE, Mr. Joe Ajaero, gave the warning yesterday during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.

Ajaero said that workers of the company should not be disengaged if their severance packages were not paid.

He was reacting to a statement credited to permanent secretary, Ministry of Power, Dr. Dere Awosika, that the ministry would start issuing disengagement letters to PHCN workers from December 17, 2012.

Awosika had said at the 5th Power Summit in Lagos that the ministry would start issuing letters of disengagement to the PHCN workers as from December 17, 2012, "Since the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) was working out the total cost of their disengagement."

Ajaero said that representatives of the Federal Government and the union had last week signed an agreement on how to pay pension and gratuities to PHCN workers.

He said that the government and labour unions in PHCN had agreed on payment of gratuities and pensions to the workers, as plans to transfer the ownership of PHCN to successor companies reached a climax.

The ministry had announced that the federal government would disburse N170 billion as severance package to workers of PHCN.

The government under the Energy Sector Power Reform Act of 2005 (ESPR) broke PHCN into 18 successor companies for sale under the on-going power sector reform.

NAN