Striking resident doctors in the country in the early hours
of Thursday signed a new Memorandum of Terms of Settlement with the Federal
Government.
The doctors, operating under the aegis of the National
Association of Resident Doctors, after the meeting, which began at about 2:30pm
on Wednesday and ended at 12:30am on Thursday, insisted that their salaries
must be paid before they will call off the strike.
Federal Government negotiation team, which was led by the
Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, promised that the doctors
would receive their bank alerts on Thursday (today).
The leadership of NARD will then meet on Friday to decide on
the next line of action.
According to a communique of the meeting, signed by all
stakeholders in the health sector and released by the Federal Ministry of
Labour and Employment, the meeting is expected to reconvene on November 2, 2017
to examine the process expected to have been followed through by the two
disputing parties.
The Memorandum of Terms of Settlement reads: “A meeting was
held on September 6, 2017, following the strike embarked upon by the members of
the National Association of Resident Doctors of Nigeria (NARD) on September 4,
2017. The meeting considered the Memorandum of Terms of Settlement dated August
31, 2017 which was signed by the Parties at the end of the conciliation meeting
held at the instance of the Honourable Minister of Labour and Employment to
address the 6 – point issues of concern to the members of NARD.
“In view of the ongoing strike by members of NARD, an
emergency meeting was convened by the Honourable Minister of Labour and
Employment to address areas of dissatisfaction in the Settlement by NARD. 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 Honourable Minister of Labour and Employment expressed
displeasure that NARD members embarked on strike inspite 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:
“1) 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 –
“i. 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 Ministry (FMoH), Federal Ministry
of Labour and Employment, CMDs, NARD and NMA;
ii. 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 OAGF tendered a mandate containing 8
FTHI and pledged to forward an additional list of the remaining FTHI to the
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for necessary action between September 7 – 8,
2017;
iii. 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.
“2) Failure To Rectify The Salary Shortfall From August 2017
The meeting noted and agreed with NARD demand for a 100%
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”.
The challenges on this issue were discussed extensively and
it was noted that the OAGF was currently capturing the Paramilitary Staff on
IPPIS Platform and would be ready to deal with members of NARD by first week of
October precisely October 4, 2017. In this regard, it is expected that the 100%
payment will be implemented as from October 2017, as September salaries were
already at advanced stage of preparation. However, any shortfall that occurs
will be treated together with that of August, 2017.
By Wale Odunsi
