By Uche Mbah
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige has denied owing the striking members of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors, NARD, or other health workers in the country, saying only those who were illegally recruited are not receiving salaries.
Health workers have been on strike to press home a coterie of demands, a situation the Minister described as unfortunate.
The fallout of the strike is the mass exodus of Nigerian Doctors to Saudi Arabia. The Gulf country had cashed in on the strike to organize interviews at Sheraton Hotels and Towers, Abuja. Crowds of medical doctors who were seeking to leave the Nigeria besieged the recruitment centre.
Saudi Arabia moved the recruitment to its online portal, thereby accentuating the brain drain.
Speaking during the opening session of the meeting of the Presidential Committee on Salaries with the leadership of the Joint Health Sector Unions in Abuja Tuesday, Ngige said those not paid were those not captured by the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation. Therefore, their payments were not provided for by the Budget Office. But due to the Presidential waiver, he said the doctors will have their appointments regularised.
“NARD (National Associations of Resident Doctors), goes about telling Nigerians that Government owes them salaries and that Government is not taking the problems in the health sector seriously. But this is not true. It is incorrect”, Ngige said.
“No doctor, nurse, pharmacist, or any other health worker, including the drivers, is owed monthly salary; the Government pays as and when due.
“The truth is that NARD doctors fail to tell Nigerians that their colleagues who are owed salaries are the ones illegally recruited and were, therefore, neither captured by the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation nor were their payments provided for by the Budget Office of the Federation.
“Monthly salaries are done as and when due for those legitimately employed by the Federal Government but not to those illegally employed and who need their appointments regularized and captured in the finances of government for payment. This takes a process which is not accomplished overnight.”
Part of what is being owed Doctors are their Covid 19 allowances and minimum wave adjustments, which the Minister said efforts to settle them are ongoing.
According to him, Federal Government has already budgeted N37.5billion for hazard allowance.
On his part, The Minister of State for Health, Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora, condemned the strike action by the health workers, referring to harsh economic realities under which the Government is operating.
The Minister of State for Finance, Budget, and Planning, Clement Agba, lamented that the budgetary expenditure of the Government is increasing while revenue continues to decrease.
