Strike: We Are Not Owing You Any Salary, Nigerian Government Tells Doctors

The Federal Government, on Tuesday, dismissed as ”untrue” claims that doctors and health workers in Nigeria are being owed salary.

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, stated this at the opening of the meeting of the Presidential Committee on Salaries with the leadership of the Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU).

Ngige said the fumes from the propaganda machine of the National Association of Resident Doctors of Nigeria (NARD) were obfuscating the federal government’s efforts to reposition the health sector.

“NARD goes about telling Nigerians that government is owing them salaries and that government is not taking the problems in the health sector serious.  But this is not true. It is incorrect.

”No doctor, nurse, pharmacist or any other health worker including the driver is owed monthly salary. The government pays as and when due.

“The truth is that NARD doctors fail to tell Nigerians that their colleagues who are owed salaries are the ones illegally recruited and were therefore neither captured by the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation nor were their payments provided for by the Budget Office of the Federation.

“Monthly salaries are done as and when due for those legitimately employed by the Federal Government but not to those illegally employed and who need their appointments regularized and captured in the finances of government for payment. This takes a process, which is not accomplished overnight,” the minister said.

-DailyTrust