The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has said that it is hamstrung to pay N1.8 billion as severance package to the former staff of Skypower Aviation Handling Company Limited (SAHCOL) because the minister of finance, budget and national planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed refused to release the fund.
This is contained in a letter signed by the director for post transaction management, Mr. Taibudeen Oduniyi, dated October 11, 2022 and marked BPE/PTM/NUATE/11/2022/M10.01 and addressed to the general secretary of the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), Mr. Ocheme Aba.
The agency also stated that its purported contribution to the treasury single account (TSA) scheme of the federal government also stopped it from fulfilling the memorandum of understanding (MoU) reached with the former workers in 2018.
Recall that the agreement to pay the money to the affected staff was reached in 2018 and close to four years down the line, walking the talk is still in the pipeline.
Recall also that the federal government in 2015 had compelled all the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to contribute 25 per cent of their revenues to the TSA.
The bureau regretted that the federal government’s policy, which compelled all the MDAs to contribute to the TSA, was “disabling” it from implementing the agreement.
According to the letter, the BPE had written Ahmed for fund to settle the retrenched workers, but without success.
“In the light of the foregoing, it has become expedient to update you on our modest efforts to bridge communication gap from the memorandum of understanding (MoU) we signed with you on November 2, 2018 to the setting up of the negotiating committee and our director general‘s willingness to offer to pay the redundancy as opposed to the stand of the chairman of SAHCOL. It is evident that if we have the resources, this would have been a forgone issue.
“Also recall that at the inception of this administration in 2015, all funds of government agencies and MDAs were swept into the treasury single account (TSA), thus disabling us financially. Given this scenario, our only option was to write to the minister of finance, budget and national planning for funds to settle you, which we did via our memo on May 19, 2022.
“We have employed several persons to assist and our last being a visit to one of the directors with the office of the accountant general of the federation on Friday 7, 2022. We are not relenting and any support from your end will be highly appreciated.”
The BPE appealed to the workers to show more understanding in getting the issue resolved.
However, there are strong indications that the workers who were sacked 2010 by the new owners of SAHCOL (now Skyway Aviation Handling Company (SAHCO Plc), may cause industrial unrest in the sector any moment soon.
One of the former workers who craved anonymity said at the weekend that they were already mobilising their members through the industry unions to organise a protest in the sector in November.
“We have waited enough. We were laid off since 2010. We have taken all the steps to ensure that we were paid as agreed, but unfortunately, we are yet to be paid.
“The BPE in 2018, after agreeing that we were entitled to the several packages, promised to pay us, but four years after this, we are yet to get anything from the bureau. They are even asking us to assist them in getting the money out of the ministry of finance. How can we do that when we are not the government?”
