Relief as Doctors Agree to End Strike
Strike unwarranted, illegal, Ngige insists
Striking resident doctors have reached agreement with the federal government to end their four-day industrial action.
The doctors also allegedly apologised to the federal government over their strike, blaming it on communication gap and bottlenecks in the implementation of agreement reached between the government and the association.
At the end of the reconciliatory meeting held yesterday at the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, the National Association of Resident
Doctors (NARD) accepted to meet with its executive council with a view to calling off the strike by today.
The communiqué issued after the meeting stated that: “In view of these understanding, NARD will consult with its executive council within the next 24hrs with a view to calling off the strike by September 10, 2020.”
The meeting agreed that nobody would be victimised for any activity connected with or for participating in the industrial action.
In a communiqué jointly signed by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator
Chris Ngige; Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr. Festus Keyamo (SAN); Minister of State for Health, Senator Olorunmibe Mamora; Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris for the federal government, and Secretary-General of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Ekpe Philip Uche, and President of NARD, Dr. Sokumba Aliyu, the federal government accepted that the N4 billion appropriated for Residency Training under a wrong heading for Medical Residency Training will be vired before expenditure.
It said the process of amendment is ongoing and is expected that the process and cash backing would be through in two weeks.
On the payment of outstanding 2014, 2015, and 2016 arrears, the meeting recalled that it had been agreed that the issue would be further discussed post-COVID-19, and therefore, no agreement was breached.
On the implementation of the payment of the Special Hazard/ Inducement Allowance, the meeting expressed satisfaction that the N20 billion already appropriated in 2020 COVID-19 budget has been exhausted to N19 billion.