The Federal Government says it will begin implementing an agreement it signed with Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) on Monday in efforts to end the indefinite strike embarked upon by the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD).
Labour and employment minister Chris Ngige said on Saturday at the continuation of a meeting of all concerned stakeholders he summoned at the instance of President Muhammadu Buhari that the move was aimed at resolving the doctors’ strike.
The meeting, which started at about 2pm on Friday, spilled over into Saturday when the medical doctors maintained that they would not shift ground unless the government attended to their demands.
Ngige, who addressed journalists before the meeting went into a closed-door session, said they had reached agreements the previous night on all the 12 disputed issues, adding that implementation would start from the next working day (Monday).
Unpaid house officers
Speaking on the issue of non-payment of some house officers, the Minister said NARD is expected to submit the list of the affected 114 officers for further verification and when confirmed that they are genuine, and their IPPIS particulars and BVN are in order, they would be paid in September with the outstanding arrears.
He added that an agreement was reached on the Residency Training Fund outstanding for 2020 and 2021, after the Budget Office had explained that N617, 429, 121 was the outstanding to be paid in the 2020 [budget].
“There are reconciliations to be done here because the 2020 [budget] was done with some errors. Some people who are not supposed to benefit from the fund got money and because of that, the number of genuine people that were not paid also came to that quantum of persons.
“So, reconciliation is being done and some monies are being returned. We have given a timeline for this reconciliation to be done.
“And for the 2021, the money approved by Government is N4.802B. This money like I said earlier was contained in the 2021 Supplementary Budget, which the President signed on the eve of his departure to UK for the meeting and medical check-up. (DailyTrust)