Health workers urge Buhari to include adjusted salary structure in 2022 budget

The Chairman of Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU), Biobelemoye Josiah, on Monday, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure the inclusion of the adjusted Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS) in the 2022 budget before signing the document.

Josiah, who made the call when he featured in Kakaaki, a breakfast Programme on African Independent Television (AIT), also appealed to the National Assembly to include the adjusted CONHESS in the budget before sending it to the President for assent.

He warned that various unions in the health sector would not be able to guarantee industrial harmony in the sector if the President fails to include the adjusted CONHESS in the budget.

Josiah said JOHESU and other unions including the Assembly of Healthcare Professional Associations, (AHPA) and Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MWHUN), among others, were aware that the Federal Government had set aside N80 billion to take care of salary adjustment for workers in the sector.

He said: “We are expecting that Mr. President will do us well because as a union we have yielded to his request that we should keep the health sector strike free for the period.

“We have done our part, we expect that no matter the games that the Federal Ministry of Health is playing by trying to deny us our own right, the President has the power to direct that the committee’s job should be included in the budget before he signs it.

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“I want to use this opportunity to call on Nigerians to plead on our behalf because we have been very patient, we have been very patriotic and we will not want a situation where all the efforts we have put to ensure that there is peace in the health sector to waste because if it is not put into the budget, next year – a few days from now, which when we go into next year, certainly, the health sector will not be as peaceful as we have tried to keep it.

“If they don’t put the adjusted CONHESS into the budget then they should be ready for us.

“At the peak of our agitation the office of the Chief of Staff to the President also intervened. We are aware that there was a provision of N80 billion made to take care of adjustment of salaries. It is our strong belief that even if they have not specifically stated that this amount is for CONHESS adjustment, I think there is a provision made already.

“Our money from what the committee has worked out is not beyond that N80 billion. So for the President who appealed to us and who we have also listened to, we have kept our deal and we have kept our gunpowder dry. We have not shot anyone so the President should do us that favour by giving us that level of love that we have shown.”

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