THE INSIDER: Controversial N2.2bn training of ex-PHCN staff ‘back on the table’

A controversial plan to “train” 37,000 of the workers disengaged since November 2013 by the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) is back on track, TheCable understands.

The cost of the training is estimated at N2.2 billion and is expected to be financed from the N400 billion proceeds from the privatisation of the power entities.

The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) had initially made the request which was turned down by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) on the ground that the training should have been done before the disengagement.

The BPP, insiders told TheCable, said it is a post-privatisation liability and was no longer under the purview of the BPE.

This proviso, however, seemed to have opened a leeway for those behind the scheme as the ministry of power has now directed the Nigeria Electricity Liability Management Company (NELMCO) to request for a “no objection” certificate from BPP for the training programme to go ahead.

NELMCO has enlisted the “support” of BPE in the procurement process in what insiders describe as an “elaborate scheme” to take billions of naira out of the system “in the name of training”.

Ironically, about 1,400 ex-PHCN workers are still battling to be paid their terminal benefits and recently staged protests in Abuja — while a multi-billion naira training programme is being put together for them.

Only God knows

Emerging facts point to one man as the brain behind the scheme — Godknows Igali, the permanent secretary in the ministry of power.

Igali (pictured) has been heavily involved in the events surrounding the privatisation of PHCN entities, including questionable insurance payments in conjunction with the BPE.

After the BPE was blocked by the BPP from going ahead with the training, the ministry of power wrote to NELMCO on June 17, 2015, asking the company charged with managing electricity “liability”  to seek approval for the programme.

NELMCO was created by the BPE to address post-privatisation residual technical issues that would cease to exist approximately after five years.

Adebayo Fagbemi, the managing director of NELMCO, was appointed a few weeks before Jonathan left office.

“Everybody knows Fagbemi is a protégé of Igali and he was instrumental to the appointment of Fagbemi as a director in NEMS before it became NELMCO. Fagbemi was a deputy director in BPE,” the insider said.

The new directive from Igali on the N2.2 billion training programme is an attempt to change the applicant from BPE to NELMCO “to hoodwink BPP”, the insider maintained.