Heath Sector Remains Shut As Union And FG Fail To Agree – Minister

Isaac Adewole, the minister of health,  has clarified that the Federal Government had no existing agreement with the Joint Health Sector Union, JOHESU, to warrant this latest strike action.

The minister who was reacting to some and advertorial in some national dailies, however, said that the government had already constituted a high-level body to look into aspects of their demands, including the financial implications and also to plan for the management of consequences of addressing those demands.

This was contained in a statement by Olajide Oshundun, the Assistant Director of Information to the Minister, and made available to the journalists on Sunday, April 29, 2018. He clarified that what JOHESU brandish as 2014 agreement were minutes of meetings they had with the organs of Federal Government.

“But let me also put it on record that when we came on board, JOHESU approached us that they have an agreement with the government. But we discovered that there was really no agreement with the government.

“What they were able to provide were minutes of meetings held previously and we told them that no responsible government will implement minutes of previous meetings and of the 15-point demands.

We have met 14 of them over the one and half years. “Indeed, what the September 2017 agreement stated under the upward adjustment of CONHESS salary scale and as published by JOHESU is that: ‘The meeting noted that two different figures had been submitted to the National Salaries and Wages Commission on separate occasions. It was observed that the figures are no longer realistic due to the lapse of time. “The NSIWC should, therefore, do a fresh submission based on new data consistent with the present reality.

The FMOH is expected to make available necessary and required data to NSIWC to enable fresh computation.

The newly computed figures will be forwarded by National Salaries and Wages Commission to the Federal Ministry of Health for onward transmission for processing to the high-level body, HLB, of the government and thereafter to Federal Ministry of Health within five weeks, this has not been done”, the statement added.

According to him, the high level body, which met last week Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday, and on Tuesday, is scheduled to meet on Sunday night. “So, we are really at work with respect to this.

We have done quite a lot of computation. We have met with Finance, we have met with Budget and National Planning.

We are looking into all issues relating to this strike,” he added Describing the current strike action is unfortunate as `the health and wellbeing of many Nigerians have been affected, the minister said that the FG been a responsible government will do everything within its power to bring the ongoing strike action to an end as quickly as possible.

Source Trent