Health
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The strike action by the staff of the National Agency for Food Drug and Control, NAFDAC, has crippled the agency’s operations nationwide thereby raising fears that importers of fake products will take advantage of it
| By Fidelia Salami | Dec. 8, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT |
THESE are not the best of times for Paul Orhii, the director general of National Agency for Food Drug and Control, NAFDAC. NAFDAC Staff under the aegis of Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria, MHWUN, have been on strike for one week. The workers downed tools on November 19, to demand that the federal government should change their salary structure and pay arrears of pension arrears.
The strike has crippled the operations of NAFDAC as only the management staff, who are forbidden to go on strike, are running skeletal services in the agencies offices nationwide. Although NAFDAC top management workers are at work, the effect of the strike is biting hard as all NAFDAC offices and operation base nationwide, including all seaports, land ports, and airports are shut down.
This current strike is the second time the workers have gone on strike this year. The first time was in January when NAFDAC workers in conjunction with the Joint Health Sector Unions, JOHESU, went on a three-day strike because of the non-implementation of the Nigeria Industrial Court judgement that they should be paid all their allowances by the ministry of health. They called it off after members of management pacified them that they were going to meet their demands.
The workers want the government to migrate them from the Consolidated Researchers and Allied Workers Salary Structure, CONRASS, to Consolidated Health Workers Salary Structure, CONHESS, which is done by the National Salaries and Wages Commission. They are also aggrieved over the delay by NAFDAC in paying their productivity allowance, promotion allowance and arrears of pension which is being handled by the National Salaries and Wages Commission.
Other issues the union is agitating for include ratification of all outstanding promotional arrears from 2012 to 2014, the non- payment of 13th month allowance, skipping of level 10 for workers in level 9 to go to level 11, a norm for health workers under the federal ministry of health and the full payment of eight months pension arrears from May to December 2012 for 2012 set of NAFDAC employees among others.
Jimoh Abubakar, director, special duties, NAFDAC, described the workers action as “highly unpatriotic, ill-conceived and wrong timed”. According to him, the strike came at a very sensitive time, between October and December when NAFDAC usually re-doubles its efforts, to check people from bringing in counterfeit products to harm Nigerians.
Speaking to Realnews, Abubakar enjoined all staff to exercise patience and return to work as the federal ministry of health has called for a meeting of all the stakeholders to put heads together to resolve the issues amicably so that Nigerians will not suffer. He said that dialogue was the answer and that strike was counter-productive. Continuing the strike until all demands are met on the part of the union at a time like this is for their selfish interest, he said, adding: “We are sympathetic to what the union is agitating for and we are appealing to the union to call off the strike. We have been persuading them and we will continue to persuade them to go back to work because this is not the time to embark on strike.”
When the productivity allowance was introduced, NAFDAC staff strength was slightly more than 1,000, but now the numerical staff strength is more than 4,000. For that reason, productivity allowance is spread around the year as against two months deadline before. Realnews gathered that presently 80 percent of staff have been paid productivity allowance which is done in alphabetical order and not by seniority or from the directors’ cadre. However, the others will be paid in December, Abubakar said.
According to him, NAFDAC has several projects on-going, and it is only right to deal with priorities. NAFDAC office that was burnt down in 2004 under Professor Araya has to be built. “We are also doing another office construction in Port Harcourt among other priorities. We are calling on the union to look at the bigger picture at hand. Nigeria is an economy that is solely dependent on oil. Government has responsibility of catering for more than 170 million Nigerians. Civil servants and public servants are just a fraction of the Nigerian population. NAFDAC and the health workers are not the only organisation that government caters for. We are just a small fraction of the Nigerian population. Other things should not suffer,” he further said.
Reacting to the current development, a source at NAFDAC, who wishes anonymity, said the issue of non-payment of allowances was not the fault of NAFDAC but that of the National Salaries and Wages Commission. “We have approached them several times and action is yet to be taken.
Dioka Ejionueme, pharmacist, barrister, and former director, Enforcement and Ports Inspection, NAFDAC, who served for eight years before his retirement in 2010, noted that in his time, there were incessant strike actions by the union.
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