Agitated medical doctors threatening
to abandon work over unpaid salaries may receive their 11 months' salary
arrears in two weeks' time, Finance Minister Seth Terkper has assured.
“I can assure them…in two weeks’
time, those whose clearances have been forwarded and awaiting financial credit
would be paid,” Seth Terkper said.
He gave the assurance on Joy FM
and MultiTV’s news analysis programme, Newsfile, Saturday.
Some 91 junior doctors have been
battling government over their unpaid salaries, eleven months after they
started working in various public hospitals across the country. They have
planned to picket at the offices of the Controller and Accountant General's
Department until their monies are fully paid.
However, explaining the cause of the
almost one year delay in the payment of the salaries to the health
workers, the Minister said the situation has been caused by the current
remuneration system, stressing that there are plans to solve the problem.
He said government has made bold
strides in automating all paper applications in the public sector – including
those for leave, transfer, payment, employment etc.
According to him, the current system
takes 30 months for Ministries, Departments and Agencies to enter the personal
data of the young doctors into government’s payroll system.
“The reason being once you leave
school, you are posted, you go to your district and you start the application
process. In your district, that paper work – and it is manual – is brought all
the way to the region and to the national. Then they are put together and
someone has to input them before it interfaces with the payroll. This is what
is causing the delay”.
“For the teachers and the health
workers who are going to be posted before next year, the solution is to
pay them salaries in advance so that at least every month they know they are
having something in advance until they are processed”, he said.
He said these government workers who
would be receiving salary advance would be used to pilot the electronic
migration of paper applications.
Source: Myjoyonline
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