The House of Representatives on Monday summoned the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim; and the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, over the ongoing strike by public sector medical doctors in the country.
Also summoned was the Head of Service of the Federation, Alhaji Bukar Goni, and Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation, Dr. Bright Okogu.
The House Committee on Health summoned the officials to appear before it unfailingly on Thursday after they failed to honour a similar invitation to a stakeholders’ meeting on the strike on Monday (yesterday).
The committee, which is chaired by Mr. Ndudi Elumelu, had said that the presence of the key government officials was important in the efforts by the House to resolve the crisis.
Elumelu noted that some of the doctors’ demands had financial implications, which could not be addressed without hearing the position of the government, particularly from Okonjo-Iweala.
According to records before the committee, government is expected to pay an estimated N6.7bn in accumulated entitlements to the striking doctors in the interim.
However, the Nigerian Medical Association made it clear to the committee that the real bone of contention was not money but the decision of the Federal Government to throw open the headship of hospitals to those it described as non-medical doctors.
The NMA couched the contentious dispute over the management of hospitals under the name of “relativity and skipping.”
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