PHED Clarifies Nature Of Staff Contract

As the extended service
contract between staff of the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHED) and the company ends next week, authorities of the company have clarified that the intent is not to sack workers but to give them skills that would increase their productivity.
The Managing Director of 4 Power Consortium Limited, Engr. Mathew Edevbie gave the clarification at a public function in Port Harcourt recently.
The 4 Power boss explained that the company considers the workforce as very important factor in the success of any power distribution company as PHED and would not set any wrong example.
Edevbie noted that PHED inherited from Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) a workforce associated with issue as found in Public Service but that PHED as private company has embarked on competency assessment.
He said, “so we are carrying out a very thorough and rigorous process of competency assessment aimed at putting the right persons in the right job”, Edevbie said.
According to the 4 Power MD, at the end of the process, we would know their level of competence and design ways of helping them perform better the job the company wants them to do.
“A lot of them have something they know, but they also have things they don’t know”, he said adding that the management gave them task gap to build the skill to enable them fill the gap.
It would be recalled that PHED, a subsidiary of 4 Power Consortium Limited extended the six months service contract between it and its staff by one month which is expected to end this month.
When the contract ended last month across the country, some power companies withdrew the identification cards of some staff while other companies merely extended the contract by one or two months.

Chris Oluoh