Health workers in Adamawa State on Wednesday protested the non-payment of their salaries.
The angry workers picketed the entire premises of the health agency in the state, carrying placards with inscriptions such as: Pay us our salaries, Belle must go, We are hungry.
The Chairman of Medical and Health Workers union in the state, Jeremiah Ngyaykwui, said: “The Executive Chairman has deliberately refused to pay us our salaries.
“We were reliably told that he has been getting subvention from government but he refused to pay us our salaries for three months now and very soon it will be four months.
“Our furniture allowance since 2012 has not been paid.
“For Christ’s sake why are they not willing to pay us?
“All our executive secretaries are conniving with the chairman to punish us.
“If the government does not step in to this problems, we will have no choice than to ground the activities of the health sector in the state.
“Our colleagues in the local government areas are doing a great job providing health care for the locals, yet they are not being paid their salaries.”
In his response, the Executive Chairman of Adamawa State Primary Health Care Management Agency, Dr. Abdullahi Belle, say his agency is presently facing serious cash problem as a result of dwindling finance from the Federation Account and could not pay salaries of the staff of the agency for the past two months.
Belle stated that it is not true he was owing three months salaries, adding: “It is only two months we are owing, December and January salaries, and as it is now, I don’t know how and when the arrears and this month salary will be paid.
“I have gotten the Governor’s approval to source for money to pay the salaries.
“All we are waiting for now is the state House of Assembly give the go ahead.
“The workers are not entitled to any allowance because they are on consolidated salary structure.
“What these workers want is for me to go and get an overdraft.
“That is what l will not do.”
Also speaking on the issue, the state Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Dauda Minna, said: “l don’t know why the Executive Chairman has refused to pay their salaries when all other sectors are getting their subvention from the same source.
“He has no reason for not paying.
“We are in support of what the health workers are doing.”
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