The National Association of Government General Medical and Dental Practitioners ( NAGGMDP) yesterday threatened to withdraw the services of its members , particularly doctors, in 13 states of the federation over alleged non - payment of salaries and allowances by the affected state governments .
The National President of NAGGMDP, Dr . Nurud -Din Akindele , handed out the threat at a news conference in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, where he issued a 21-day ultimatum to the federal and state governments . Akindele listed the states currently owing doctors to include Abia , Anambra , Bayelsa , Ebonyi , Ekiti , Enugu , Kogi, Nasarawa , Ondo, Osun , Oyo , Plateau and Rivers.
According to him , the affected states owe doctors in their employ between two and eight months ’ salaries. He said : “ Apart from owing doctors and other civil servants salaries of several months , most states are not paying doctors the true value of their salaries as stipulated by the National Income Salaries and Wages Commission regarding the corrected CONMESS circular released on 3rd January , 2014.
“ I am constrained to inform the federal and state governments that NAGGMDP will take this press conference as notice to all governments defaulting in payment of salaries and allowances to doctors as a 21-day notification, at the end of which we cannot guarantee continuity in rendering of services by all our doctors being owed salaries and allowances by any state in the federation. ”
Akindele , who bemoaned the negative effects of unpaid salaries on doctors , also expressed support for the decision by the Socio- Economic Rights and Accountability Project ( SERAP ) to drag governors owing salaries to the International Criminal Court ( ICC ) . He said his association would collaborate with SERAP by supplying “ intrinsic information regarding the situation ” just as he urged President Muhammadu Buhari to prevail on the debtor state governors to pay up.
“ We want President Muhammadu Buhari to use whatever means available to compel all states to pay their workers . Some of these state governors are just being dubious by not paying their workers , ” he added .
Akindele , who was flanked by some members of the association ’ s executive, called for improved funding of the health sector, especially primary and secondary healthcare levels .
He warned against the plan to build 10, 000 primary healthcare centres across the country , saying the Federal Government should rather concentrate on improving existing health institutions .
He said : “ The Minister of Health talks about building 10, 000 health centres . Why not improve the existing hospitals ? Our problem in this country is white elephant project . Every government comes in and thinks of the white elephant project they want to embark on . “ Our position is that the government should concentrate on improving existing institutions ; this would have better impact on Nigerians . They should stop deceiving Nigerians with white elephant projects .
“ The Nigerian health care delivery has always been rated low with appalling indices . The various stakeholders in the sector need to converge their effort in the direction of improved health care delivery as this will lead to tremendous improvement in the health of the citizenry .
” All the states in Nigeria are also guilty of very poor budgetary allocation to the health sector. Even the little amount in the budgets for health is not always released to the extent that the performance of some of them is between two and five percent annually. ”
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