The federal government has promised to offset salary arrears of resident doctors today in efforts to get them back at work.
A meeting called by the Labour Minister, Chris Ngige with National Association of Resident Doctors, the Nigerian Medical Association, hospital heads and the health ministry lasted from Wednesday to early hours of yesterday.
The meeting discussed agreements reached with striking doctors on August 31, shortly before the strike started. The outcome would be discussed by resident doctors today.
Crucial to the discussion is the absence of resident doctors on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information—the platform for data capture and verification for civil service workers nationwide.
That led to a salary shortfall last year and between January and May this year for resident doctors.
The Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation was contacted for to address shortfalls in public sector funding, including paying salaries of resident doctors in federal hospitals, which had amounted to N13.2 billion.
The meeting resolved that in the absence of the IPPIS, salaries would be sent directly to the affected hospitals that had been authenticated.
“The payments are expected as early as today (Friday, September 8), as a gesture of goodwill, for the first eight hospitals.
The accountant-general has forwarded a list of the remaining hospitals to the Central Bank for necessary action, according to a memo from the meeting.
A second batch of hospitals not captured on IPPIS will be treated once the financial implication is sent to the account-general’s office.
Resident doctors claim the shortfalls are already verified by the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA).
