•  JOHESU alleges police harassment

 

• Govt accuses GAVI of incomplete, unilateral report on vaccine misuse 

 

FOLOWING a deadlock in their meetings government officials, the striking Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) has declared a total strike while calling on all well-meaning Nigerians to ask the Federal Government to respect the rule of law by implementing the collective agreements being reached since 2009.

 

   The workers have been on strike since November 12 to press home some “pending” demands. Tuesday, however, the group declared full industrial action by withdrawing all its members who were hitherto rendering skeletal services in some hospitals in the country.

 

   Also yesterday JOHESU President, Ayuba Waba, told newsmen that government was using police to harass members in Lagos, describing it as “ignominious use of the police to brutalize our members in some health facilities in    Lagos.

 

   “If the situation continues, it may lead to a breakdown of law and order in our health institutions, similar to that witnessed in ABUTH and other hospitals in the 1990s.”

 

   Meanwhile, the Minister of State for Health, Dr. Khaliru Alhassan, has described the international audit report that indicted Nigeria for allegedly misusing millions of dollars meant for vaccination of millions of Nigerian children against killer-diseases as “incomplete” and “unilateral.”

 

   Alhassan also alleged that the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), which commissioned the audit report, did not consider Nigeria’s response before publishing the findings. 

 

   The audit report, as exclusively reported by The Guardian, had asked the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate the Ministry of Health and the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) and their officials who were found culpable.

 

   Though over two weeks since the story was published and lifted by some media platforms, the ministry says Nigeria was not carried along, stressing that government was committed to ensuring transparency and effectiveness in managing donor-support.

 

   Waba advised health workers in the country to prepare for a “long, full battle until victory is achieved,” stating: “At the last meeting between the Federal Government and JOHESU on November 19, 2014, government requested for 24 days to look into all our demands and consequently fixed another meeting for December 15, 2014.  

 

 

   “Disappointingly, at the meeting of Monday, December 15, key officials of the Federal Ministry of Health, notably the minister, permanent secretary and directors were conspicuously absent, thereby stalling the meeting.

 

   “We are disturbed that instead of government showing concern and demonstrating commitment towards bringing an end to the plight of Nigerians and health workers by addressing the issues and restoring public health services, it resorted to acts of intimidation.

 

   “In the light of the foregoing, which is verifiable, JOHESU has fulfilled all righteousness and our strike action is both legal and legitimate. The invocation of ‘no work, no pay’ by the Federal Government is totally flawed and holds no water whatsoever.”

 

   He then directed JOHESU members across the country to suspend all forms of skeletal and concessional services in all healthcare facilities and ensure total compliance with the strike action.

 

   “As a matter of necessity, branch meetings should hold regularly for the enforcement of members’ rights and liberties and to resist any form of brutalization, intimidation and oppression through all legitimate means. Members should gird their loins for a long-drawn battle, if needs be, as we will not turn back until victory is achieved,” he said. 

 

   According to a statement signed by the ministry’s Director of Press and Public Relations, Mrs. Ayo Adesugba, “the media publications were based on an incomplete and unilateral report of the Cash Programme Audit (CPA) commissioned by GAVI, which did not contain Nigeria’s response as is the custom in bilateral and multilateral relationships.”

 

   She noted that the attention of the Supervising Minister and Minister of State for Health, Alhassan, “has been drawn to misleading and inaccurate reports published in some sections of the media on the purported ‘indictment’ of Nigeria by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) for ‘alleged misuse of vaccine funds for programme activities under NPHCDA.’

 

   “Additionally, the report implied that Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization has withdrawn its cash programme.”

 

By Emeka Anuforo