The Periscope Reporter
President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, directed the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, to effect payment of doctors, nurses and other health workers for the period they were on strike in 2018 and 2021.
The Minister of Labour, Dr Chris Ngige, disclosed this to State House correspondents after a meeting with Buhari on Thursday.
The Minister explained that the payment would be for the two months the resident doctors went on strike in 2021 and the three months the nurses and other health workers down tools in 2018.
According to him, “Mr. President has approved last week and I have the authority and letter, directing the Minister of Finance to release the funds of the resident doctors for September and October 2021, which was seized in conformity with the law.
“In the same vein, the approval also covers members of the JOHESU who went on strike in 2018 for three months. After the first month, after March, when they couldn’t come back, we asked that their pay be suspended, this is in tandem with the ILO principles at work.
“You have a right to strike, but the employer has a right to stop your remuneration and if possible, use it to keep his enterprise going by taking new hands, where possible, especially in essential services.
“So that same money for 2018 April and May Mr. President has again approved that the Finance Minister refunds or reimburse on compassionate grounds, those payments. This is predicated on the grounds that this group of workers has been showing a lot of dedication and concern to the COVID and that their Hazard Allowance for 2021 had remained what it was before”.
Responding to the grievances by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the minister asserted that since July 2021, a total of N52.1 billion revitalization fund has so far been released to workers in the university system in consonance with an MOA signed in December 2020 and expects that members of ASUU would have been adequately informed about the Federal Government’s efforts.
He further explained that payments were made following a nine-month industrial action embarked upon by the body. He insisted that the persisting altercation is the lack of knowledge by members of the payments and a renegotiation of the 2009 agreement involving conditions of service.
The minister, therefore, insisted that the recommendations still lie at the level of the Ministry of Education after which the Federal Government will take appropriate action.
This, according to him, does not amount to a refusal by the Federal Government to implement any agreement.
The National Executive Council (NEC) of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had earlier decided on a meeting for Saturday with zonal leaders of the union over an alleged failure of the Federal Government to implement agreements reached with the union in 2020.
Dr Ngige, therefore, appealed to ASUU to exercise patience with the government in order to reach a logical conclusion.