According to the Guardian, The Federal Government has spent over N609 billion to settle labour liabilities of its privatised enterprises in the last 13 years, the Bureau of Public Enterprise, (BPE) has said. It quoted BPE Director-General, Benjamin Dikki, who revealed that about N609.4 billion was used between 2000 and 2013 in settling labour liabilities in privatized public enterprises. According to him, over N384.062 billion, which represents about 63 per cent of the total sum, was used to settle labour liabilities in the power sector alone.
Giving a detailed breakdown of the entire sum spent he said, the power sector was closely followed by the telecommunications sector where about N126.7 billion was disbursed to settle labour issues principally in NITEL/M-tel. Besides, he said out that government further spent N67.7 billion in the transport and aviation sector with bulk of it on the settlement of liabilities of the workers of Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA). He noted that the steel sector consumed another N10.7 billion as settlement, while about N8.9 billion was spent in settling labour issues in privatised enterprises in the agro-allied sector. Other labour related liabilities settled within the period are N4.7 billion in Insurance sector; N3.5 billion for sugar companies; and N417.4 million for the paper mills.
