THE striking doctors, under the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) on Thursday agreed to suspend their ongoing strike today, if the government make do their promise to pay the N13.2 billion salary shortfall owed them.
The doctors were 100% committed to end the strike today by given the government an open freedom to discipline any of its members who fail to report for duty, after today once there is evidence of payment of salaries to affected Federal Tertiary Health Institutions which was presented to the meeting between the doctors and the federal government.
The figure is put at N13.2 billion which is to address the shortfalls in Public Sector including payment of the salaries of affected doctors in Federal Tertiary Health Institutions (FTHI).
However, they assured the government that the strike will be called off once there is payment of the money.
Meanwhile, they said none of their members should be victimized for taken part in the strike if it is suspended.
“No member of NARD will be victimized as a result of this strike if suspended, after the emergency meeting of Friday, September 8, 2017,” the NARD signed along with government team, led by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, after their conciliatory meeting.
This was part of the agreement reached early on Thursday morning between the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) and the Federal Government.
The agreement also said: “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 N13.2 Billion 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 Ministry (FMoH), 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 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;
“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.
“The Federal Government will appeal to State Governments and Organisations that owe salary shortfalls/emoluments to Health Workers to make genuine efforts to liquidate these arrears in the spirit of revamping the Health Care System in the country.
“The meeting agreed that NARD National Officers are to present the outcome of the re-negotiated Memorandum of Terms of Settlement to an emergency meeting of its members by Friday September 8, 2017 with a view to suspending the strike once there is evidence of payment of the Mandate as presented to the meeting, to the affected Institutions.”
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