Committee wants NMA to apologise to Nigerians over strike
(Nigeria )
The House of Representatives Committee on Health on Monday called on the Nigerian Medical
Association, NMA, to apologise to Nigerians over its 55-day-old strike, which paralyzed
activities at public hospital across the country.
The Chairman of the committee, Rep. Ndudi Elumelu, told
newsmen at in Abuja
that the apology became necessary because the strike caused Nigerians
inconveniences as well as loss of lives.
It will be recalled that NMA suspended the strike on August
24, at the end of an emergency delegates meeting in
``The committee is delighted with the suspension of the
strike by the NMA,’’ Elumelu said.
He said the committee appreciated the efforts of President
Goodluck Jonathan for the round table he held with the leadership of the
association.
Elumelu also expressed gratitude to the Senate President,
David Mark and the Speaker, House of
Representative, Aminu Tambuwal, for intervening and providing the committee the
needed support.
He urged the NMA to work with Federal Government in line
with resolutions the two parties reached through the committee's intervention
on July 21, 2014.
Part of the agreement, he added, was that the ``Federal
Government shall pay two months salary arrears to members of NMA on or before
July 31”.
``The balance of salary arrears would be reflected in 2015
budget and paid to members of NMA and new salary structure be reflected as well
as among others.
The chairman also said that Nigerians had a lot to learn
from the strike in order to avert reoccurrence of such development in the
future.
He said one of such lessons was the need to obey agreements,
adding that if parties had obeyed previous agreements between NMA and Federal
Government, the strike would have been averted.
``The lesson here is that we must at all times obey contents
of agreements freely entered into in order to avert crisis,’’ he said.
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