Members of the National Union of Electricity Workers on Thursday staged a protest at the premises of the Bureau for Public Enterprise (BPE) in Abuja.
The protesters were at the BPE office to demand the payment of severance allowances to staff who were affected by the unbundling of the electricity sector in 2012.
They were forced to a protest because the Federal Government has continued to violate agreed payment modalities reached between the union and the BPE management.
Deputy President (South) of the union, Christian Omendi, said government has failed to fulfil the promises made to them since 2013.
“We have given the BPE a lot of time since 2013 to resolve all outstanding issues and the leadership of the unions has always agreed to any arrangement on ground to see that these issues are resolved and our people stop suffering,” he said.
“But as it stands up till this morning (Thursday), when we came here, it was like we were not hearing any response from the last promises the have made.
“Our coming here is to tell them to give us our alerts, especially our comrades who since 2013, have not seen a dime of their severance.”
Addressing the workers, BPE Director of Electricity and Power, Ibrahim Babagana, assured them that the government was working to address their concerns.
Babagana, who spoke on behalf of the BPE Director-General, promised that the agency would communicate its position on the issue on Friday next week.
