FMOH Staff Demand Removal PS Removal

Posted on: Mon 08-07-2013

Workers locked down the premises of the federal health ministry for hours Wednesday morning to demand the removal of health permanent secretary, Fatima Bamidele.

They accuse the her of making working conditions difficult and the central working committee (CWC) of workers at the ministry demanded the Head of Service to "post the Perm Sec [Bamidele] out of the ministry."

CWC chairman, Matthias Ogbalor, said agreements reached in the long-running dispute with the ministry were not implemented.

"We found out that management has been deceiving the union...going for two years now," he said.

The workers claim an estimated N4.6 billion in budget funding was returned to cheque, "meanwhile we have issues on ground" that the money should have gone into, according to Ogbalor, including arrears on course allowances, death benefits and other accumulated debts.

He said the ministry hasn instead, focussed in the first two quarters of 2013, on paying old debts and contractors to the detriment of its workers.

"Since she came to our ministry, our ministry has spoilt," said one protesting worker. "Go to store, there's nothing there. There's no material to do work. And we have a lot of arrears to collect. People who were promoted have not been paid promotion arrears because there's no money."

Bamidele could not be reached for comments. The ministry did not react to the workers' protest and its press office is yet to issue an official stand.

The lockdown cut off public access to that part of the federal secretariat which houses health ministry in Abuja's central business district till toward noon.

The ministry has been the scene of at least two protests this year after health workers, late last year demanded health minister, Onyebuchi Chukwu "must go".

Earlier this year, nurses also protested at the ministry to call attention to discriminatory differences between their course and medical programmes.

This is the first time the permanent secretary, who mediated tripartite negotiations to suspend workers' strike at National Hospital earlier, has been named in workers' protest.

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