Following a failed attempt by the federal government and the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) to reach an immediate consensus, government has till today to pay all the outstanding areas and allowances owed to the doctors or the strike will continue.
The federal government, however, has agreed to credit the accounts of the resident doctors on or before the Friday dateline.
This condition was contained in a 10 point demand given by the doctors to the federal government after an all-night long conciliation meeting to end the strike which entered its second day by in response to the long overdue arrears, as well as other issues affecting the resident doctors.
The doctors, who remained adamant in their demand during the pulsating all-night deliberation, were at the verge of impeaching their national president, Dr. Onyebueze John, with high level of exuberance before the Ministers of Labour and Employment, and the two ministers from the Ministry of Health as well as other top federal government officials.
Government had earlier pleaded for two weeks extension, stating that the outcome of the negotiation must be communicated to the accountant general before the payment is made. “We cannot afford to call off the strike, alert or no deal,” they chorused.
“We know that once we call it off, then we will be left out and that is how it has been,” the doctors stressed.
Earlier before the meeting, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, said that the federal government and NARD agreed to resume discussion by November, while the association calls off the strike and also use the opportunity to consult its members.
Dr. Ngige, stated that government was amazed at the turn of event when the association embarked on a strike and abandoned its work of saving lives.
The negotiation, which went into the night, has its meeting leaked to the media as the doctors demanded to either receive bank account on or Saturday next week or the strike continues. According to one of the angry doctors, “we will not allow this nonsense, how can the President go to London to be treated by medical doctors that are well paid and who work in well equipped Hospitals but fail to pay doctors in his own country.”
The meeting noted NARD’s position that despite the signed Memorandum of Terms of Settlement, the industrial action by its members emanated from a distrust of government commitment to execute its own end of the Terms of Settlement.
The Minister of Labour and Employment expressed displeasure that NARD members embarked on strike despite of the signed collectively agreed Terms of Settlement dated August 31, 2017, and conciliation in progress in line with the provisions of Section 5 of the Trade Disputes Act, CAP. T8, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN), 2004.
The issues of concern to NARD were therefore re-addressed as follows; that subsequent to “failure to pay our salary shortfall of 2016 and January to May 2017.
Acknowledging the need for the resident doctors to receive their full salaries, the meeting deliberated extensively on the accounting difficulties encountered in the disbursement of salaries to non regular payrolls labeled ‘non regular allowances’ as against regular payrolls covered by the IPPIS platform.”
The meeting further noted that the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) did receive one Authority to Incur Expenditure (AIE) of the sum of N13.2billion to address the shortfalls in Public Sector, including payment of the salaries of affected doctors in Federal Tertiary Health Institutions (FTHI).
After due considerations by the meeting especially of the document submitted by NARD on ‘Salary Shortfall,’ it was agreed that the OAGF has to employ checks and balances in disbursing government funds.
Accordingly, though verifications had been done by the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA), there was still need to carry out authentications.
Payment would therefore be made directly to the affected FTHI for doctors and staff that have been authenticated, and additionally, a soft copy would be forwarded to the parent federal health ministry, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, CMDs, NARD and NMA.
That the FTHIs on list A of the document submitted by NARD that have been authenticated by OAGF were expected to receive payments on or before Friday, September 8, 2017 as the OAGF tendered a mandate pledged to forward an additional list of the remaining FTHI to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for necessary action between September 7 and 8, 2017.
That the 2nd batch (list B) Mandate will be treated as soon as their AIE is sent to OAGF since NARD claimed that PICA had verified the shortfalls.
Secondly, NARD recommends that failure of the federal government to rectify the salaries shortfall from the month of August 2017 that it may not call off the strike today.
The meeting noted and agreed with NARD demand for a 100per cent payment of salaries to its members. However, it was observed that the shortfalls were basically experienced by those not on the IPPIS platform termed “Non Regular Allowances/Payments.”
NARD was also assured that notwithstanding IPPIS coming into existence in October, 2017, the arrears accumulated in salary shortfalls on the Non Regular Platform, would be paid based on the old payment regime and liquidated.
After extensively discussing the issue by all parties, it was concluded that while the appeal filed by the FMoH in the Appeal Court against the Judgment of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) on skipping is pending; skipping for doctors should however continue as currently applied for other health workers.
Hospitals that are yet to implement skipping for doctors are to commence. Also, there should be no “same scale” promotion except at the terminal grade level and in accordance with the Public Service Rules.
Payment for skipping shall stop if the Appeal Court invalidates the payment. They also ordered federal government to enroll and capture its members on the Integrated Personnel Payment Information System (IPPIS).
On this issue, the meeting concluded that item V of the Memorandum of Settlement dated August 31, 2017 should be adopted and implemented.
Item V under reference provides as follows – “Based on the information given by the members of NARD, it was noted that only 18 Federal Tertiary Health Institutions had so far submitted their Nominal Roll.
