Labour vows to shut down NHIS in 21 days

THE Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) has vowed to shut down the offices of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) throughout the country including the Federal Capital Territory Abuja unless the management of the NHIS within 21 days, reverses the illegal secondment of staff into the organisation.

In a press statement issued in Lagos on Tuesday and made available to Tribune Online, the ASCSN Secretary-General, Comrade Alade Bashir Lawal, regretted that all efforts made by the Union to reach out to the Executive Secretary, Prof Usman Yusuf, to have a change of heart and convene a meeting to discuss the illegal secondment of staff into the organisation had been rebuffed.
“As a responsible trade union organisation that believes so much in dialogue in and settling dispute in work-places, we requested a meeting with the Executive Secretary to discuss the issue of illegal secondment with a view to resolving it only to be ignored on all occasions.

“The Executive Secretary illegally imported officers into the organisation, some of whom were on grade level 10 in their former work-places and placed them on grade level 15 at the NHIS, positions that are inconsistent with their qualifications and experience despite the fact that there are qualified and competent serving officers that should have been made to fill the positions,” it stated.
The ASCSN emphasised that to date, it had written four letters to the executive secretary on the need to summon a meeting to deliberate and resolve the matter which he deliberately refused to acknowledge.

“It is clear that the executive secretary is bent on running the organisation the way he likes. Indeed, he has been boasting that the organisation belongs to him and that he will run it as his personal estate,” the Union stated.

The ASCSN condemned the emperor-style the executive secretary used to import the officers into the NHIS illegally in flagrant violation of the Public Service Rules and other extant regulations governing the issue of secondment in the Public Service.

According to the ASCSN Secretary-General, the 21–day ultimatum was also endorsed to the Vice President, Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, the Federal Ministry of Health, Labour and Employment, the Inspector-General of Police, the Director-General, State Security Services, the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), etc, to avail them of the development.