The Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE, has alerted the public of a plot by unscrupulous individuals to defraud ex-PHCN staff through a phantom verification exercise.
The Bureau in a statement issued by Amina Othman, the Head, Public Communications, in Abuja, Thursday, said those behind the plot have invited the ex-staff for the purported verification at various centres across the country.
PHCN ex-staff, according to the BPE, have been asked to pay a verification fee of N1, 000 each, with a claim that the bureau had issued 10,000 forms for the exercise.
The agency said it was not involved in the said verification and that it was being put together by individuals with criminal intent, warning ex-PHCN staff to disregard it.
The statement read: “Our attention has been drawn to attempts by a group of former staff of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, to link the Bureau to a purported verification exercise for the disengaged staff of the entity and they have circulated various correspondences to their members in that regard.
“In the correspondences, captioned: BPE-Notice To All Disengaged Staff Of Ex-PHCN Staff and written in poor English Language, the requested former staff of the defunct PHCN to visit designated venues in the country with relevant documents and a processing fee of N1,000 each.
“It also said BPE has released 10,000 forms with a security number to all the zones across the country and that the forms must be returned in hard copies with specific requirements and after processing, payment would commence until the whole 48,000 staff are paid.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the BPE is not conducting another verification exercise for the defunct staff of the PHCN and is not in any way connected with the purported verification by the group.
“It must be noted that each time the Bureau carries out verification of former staff of the defunct PHCN, adequate publicity is carried out with the involvement of the National Union of Electricity Employees, NUEE, and the Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Companies.
”But in the purported verification by the group, these are absent. BPE wishes to dissociate itself from the purported verification and warns all former staff of the PHCN and general public to beware! To be warned is to be forearmed!”
