By Kemo Cham
Sierra Leone’s Minister of Health, Dr Austin Dembi has urged medical doctors to reconsider threat of downing tools over delay in payment of fuel allowances, warning that strike action is not the right way for health workers to seek redress for their concerns.
Dr Dembi said the health sector is different from other industrial sectors, noting that lives are at stake when health workers choose to abandon their job in the name of industrial action.
“This is not a car factory. It is not a caterpillar works. These are people’s lives…,” he said at the weekly government press briefing hosted by the Ministry of Information and Civic Education on Tuesday.
“At the end of the day, people will die. Children will die, women will die,” he added.
Doctors, under the auspices of the Sierra Leone Medical and Dental Association (SLMDA), reportedly issued a strike notice after their efforts to get the government pay their outstanding fuel allowances failed. According to reports, the strike was set to commence on Wednesday, October 23rd, a day after the end of their 21-day strike notice.
But Dembi appeared to question the legality of strike action by the doctors under SLMDA, suggesting that they have to be a union to embark on such a move.
In line with relevant provisions governing the civil service in Sierra Leone, all civil servants from Grade Nine above are entitled to a weekly fuel allocation of 45 litters. In the Health Ministry, 1,300 people, comprising 500 doctors and 800 nurses, are eligible for this allowance.
Mr Dembi said this amounts to NLe7.5million for the 500 doctors alone per quarter (every three months), totalling NLe31 Million for the year. The payment is made on a quarterly basis, although the doctors have repeatedly demanded for this to be included in their monthly salaries.
While admitting that allocations of the fuel allowances have sometimes delayed due to competing financial needs of the state, the Health Minister said the government have always paid backlogs. He also said that health workers, particularly doctors, have been prioritised over other government workers in terms allocations.
According to Dembi, payment has been made for the two quarters of 2024, noting that the doctors are only owed for the last six months (July – December) of the year. He added that part of the reason for the delay is that the authorities processing the payment were trying to verify the list of eligible staffers. And he said the Ministry of Finance had already done paperwork for the third quarter, promising those already verified were likely to receive payment within the week.
Dembi said all this have been conveyed to the leadership of SLMDA.
“We don’t know the need for this strike action,” he said.
