Health workers petition Education, Labour ministers, SERAP over CONTTA exclusion

A Coalition of Healthcare Professionals in Tertiary Education Institutions in Nigeria has petitioned the Ministers of Education and Labour and Employment over the alleged exclusion of university-employed medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists, medical laboratory scientists and other allied health professionals from arrears of the Consolidated Non-Teaching Tool Allowance.

The group also said it had served pre-action notices on 14 federal universities over the alleged exclusion and approached the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) for legal support in pursuing the matter.

National Chairman of the coalition, Musa Shehu, disclosed this in a statement on Monday, saying the affected workers were members of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities and the Non-Academic Staff Union and had union dues deducted from their salaries.

According to him, the workers were being excluded from CONTTA by some universities because they were on the Consolidated Health Salary Structure and Consolidated Medical Salary Structure rather than the Consolidated Tertiary Institutions Salary Structure.

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Shehu argued that the salary structure should not be used as a basis for denying the workers the allowance, claiming that some federal universities had already paid CONTTA to healthcare professionals on the CONHESS and CONMESS salary structures.

He cited the University of Ibadan, University of Abuja, University of Port Harcourt and Obafemi Awolowo University among institutions he said had mapped the affected health workers to the relevant CONTISS equivalents and paid the allowance.

The coalition alleged that other institutions, including the University of Lagos, Ahmadu Bello University, University of Nigeria, Nsukka and the Federal University of Technology, Minna, had not paid the affected workers.

Shehu said the coalition had served statutory pre-action notices on the vice-chancellors and governing councils of 14 federal universities as it prepared for possible litigation at the National Industrial Court of Nigeria.

He said the coalition had also approached SERAP to seek legal support for a possible public-interest action over what it described as discriminatory treatment of its members.

The group further alleged that local officials of SSANU and NASU had failed to protect healthcare professionals who were members of the unions despite the deduction of check-off dues from their salaries.

The coalition called on the Federal Government to direct the National Universities Commission and the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission to clarify the eligibility of non-teaching staff for CONTTA regardless of their salary structure.

It also urged the government to direct universities that had allegedly excluded the affected workers to pay their outstanding arrears and investigate the circumstances surrounding the disputed payments.

“Our members are heavily agitated. While we await a response from SERAP and a mediation summons from the Ministry of Labour, let it be known that the countdown to a total industrial crisis across university health centres has begun,” he said.

However, the coalition’s claims could not be independently verified at the time of filing this report.

The affected universities, SSANU and NASU, should be given the opportunity to respond to the allegations, particularly the claims concerning the payment of CONTTA, the deduction of union dues and the alleged exclusion of healthcare professionals.