National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) workers have embarked on an indefinite strike, which has unearthed issues that may reverse the agency’s achievements, if not resolved, writes SINA FADARE
THE serene environment at the premises of National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) at Oshodi, Lagos, came to life on November 6. It was the day the agency’s workers carried out their threat to down tools.
The workers, who arrived at the premises as early as 7am, carried placards with inscriptions such as “NAFDAC leaders have failed Nigerians’, “Admin is corrupt”, “Implement skipping”, “We have suffered enough”, “Implement our promotions”, among others.
Their leader, Comrade Stephen Ibe, who is the Area Council’s Chairman of the Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN), said his members gave the agency’s management a sufficient time to address all grievances.
But Ibe added that NAFDAC officials pretended as if nothing was at stake.
He explained that despite attempts to ensure that the crisis was resolved amicably, “NAFDAC’s Director General, Dr. Paul Ohirii, bluntly refused to listen.”
According to him, the union had no “other choice, but to padlock the premises of the organisation to all transactions throughout the federation, including the seaports and airports.”
“It is now or never. We have had series of meetings with all the stakeholders since March, last year, but to no avail. Therefore, the union has no choice than to declare an indefinite strike until our expectations are met,” he stressed.
Concerns mount
However, for an agency with the critical mandate of regulating and controlling the manufacture, importation, exportation, advertisement, distribution, sale and use of food, drugs, cosmetics, medical devices, chemicals and packaged water, industry watchers feared that the workers’ action might reverse the gains recorded by the agency.
A source said the industrial action might “give agents of deaths the leeway to operate, even within the short period of the strike.”
An operator in the pharmaceutical industry, who craved anonymity, said makers of fake products were outwitting NAFDAC officers when the agency’s workers were not on strike, pleading for early resolution of the crisis.
The Genesis
Ibe noted that the workers would return to work, if their grievances are resolved.
The issues at stake, he said, included the upward review of Job Specific Allowances by National Salaries, Incomes and Wages and the immediate implementation of Skipping of CONRAISS by NAFDAC management as directed by a circular, HCSF/EPO/EIR/63755/T1/192, dated November 4, 2014. He said the circular was issued following a judgment of the National Industrial Court’s in favour of JOHESU.
Others are implementation of all outstanding promotion’s arrears from 2012 to 2014, full payment of 13th month allowances and eight months pension arrears from May to December, 2012 for 2012 set of NAFDAC’s employees. The workers also asked NAFDAC’s management to account for Good Manufacturing Practice (GMPS) fund.
The Nation gathered that the crisis in the agency started last December, when the union allegedly advised the management not to spend about N25 million on an end of the year party, “since some of our allowances were not yet paid.” But their pleas were reportedly ignored, as the management went ahead to organise the Christmas party, which the union directed its members to boycott.
Another bone of contention was the issue of 13th month allowances, which the agency started paying under the tenure of the former Director-General, Prof. Dora Akunyili. She reportedly introduced the package to motivate the workers since most of them were sometimes called to duty at odd hours.
But instead of paying the money in full, the union said it was staggered. Before the industrial action started, majority of the workers were yet to be paid, the union alleged.
Besides, the MHWUN’s leader also accused the agency’s director general of being insensitive to the welfare of his members. He claimed that NAFDAC’s officials were being paid on Research and Allied Institute Salary Structure (CONRISS), instead of the Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS).
The former salary structure is for researchers, while the latter is for health workers – the category which NAFDAC employees claimed they belong. The CONHESS salary structure, the workers insisted, was adopted under the late Dr. Akunyili’s tenure.
The union argued that by adopting CONRISS, they were being underpaid between N20,000 to N80, 000, depending on each worker’s grade level and step.
At a meeting with the management on January 13, last year, at the agency’s corporate headquarters in Abuja, the union presented a nine-page document that summarised all the workers’ grievances. In the document, the union frowned at the agency’s failure to pay the first 28 days allowances for newly employed workers, a situation they said started in 2009 and ended in 2012. The union also harped against “selective staff training to favour some workers while others were neglected.”
They also complained that local and international workshops, seminars and conferences were not “being distributed on nominal roll and there is no fair share in attendance.”
Other issues raised included poor handling of staff claims, which the workers said “have been reduced to whom you know and which button you can press before you get what belongs to you.”
The union also frowned at the way the GMP was being spent. The fund, according to investigation, is a consolidated funds paid by all the manufacturers outside the country into the purse of the agency to monitor their operational practice. It was alleged that those benefitting from such funds were only those who were “closed to the management.”
However, the bone of contention, according to the union, was that the agreements reached with the management on July 8, were not implemented. The union is demanding that the agency’s management should effect the payment of outstanding 75 per cent 2013 productivity allowances as well as pay the official first 28 days to 2009 to 2012 set of workers affected. They asked for the return of skipping allowances, conversion and upgrading of Higher National Diploma (HND) and Master Degree holders.
On skipping, the workers said their colleagues, who were entitled “to move from Level 10 to 12 by skipping Level 11,” were not considered. Besides, the union also alleged that the activities of the agency’s Director of Administration & Human Resources were against the workers’ welfare.
The Chairman of NAFDAC’s branch of MHWUN, Comrade Ibrahim Isah, in a chat with The Nation, said the director was responsible for the failure to implement the “skipping policy.” He also alleged that the admin chief also refused to communicate the verdict of the industrial tribunal to the Salary and Wages Commission “with the aim of frustrating the workers’ effort.”
“She also changed the workers’ salary structure from CONHESS to CONRISS , refused to promote those recommended for automatic promotion by the DG and failed to facilitate the payment of 2012/13 promotion arrears,” Isah alleged.
NAFDAC’s defence
But Dr. Ohrii, while reacting to the accusations levelled against the agency, threatened to “cure the cause of the strike” by stopping all training programmes for NAFDAC workers. He explained that the unpaid allowances emanated from claims from travels for trainings.
He said NAFDAC, under his leadership, had built the capacity of its workers through local and foreign trainings, more than under any other former director general.
“Unfortunately, that has become one of my flaws, because sometimes I over-approved this training opportunities and when workers come back, there is usually no enough money to meet their claims immediately. Maybe, the workers have abused this privilege,” he said.
He added: “I can just cancel all training opportunities, both within and outside the country. It is not those who have not travelled or benefitted from such trainings that are calling for strike. Rather, it is those who have travelled that are laying hold to claims and unpaid allowances.”
However, a senior worker, who also spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity, accused “some poor advisers surrounding the DG of mis-leading into taking decisions that would ridicule his competence, when compared with the situation of things before Ohrii joined the organisation.”
The source argued: “How can a DG, who has been claiming that there is no fund to upset the workers’ allowances, bought 20 new Peugeot 508 at the cost of about N200 million for majority of the directors, who are mostly due for retirement in the next two years? If the agency, on a monthly basis, can be generating about N700 million and could not pay the staff allowances, then something is fundamentally wrong.
“Take for instance, the GMP allowance. This is a payment that drug manufacturers outside the country are paying for inspection; this is not NAFDAC money. The GMP has accrued to millions of naira over the years. Why is it difficult for the management to pay the allowances of those they are sending out for inspections? Why is it that some workers are using their personal money to embark on the trips? Where did they get such money? These are the salient issues, which the DG should address.”
But debunking the allegations, the agency’s Director of Special Duties, Alhaji Abubakar Jimoh, who spoke to The Nation on phone, said the DG has a comprehensive welfare package, which he intended to unfold before the workers embarked on the strike.
According to him, the issue of allowances had two dimensions – the internal and the external. Jimoh explained that the internal dimension, which was within the purview of the management, was being attended to.
He added that the external angle, dealing with the Salary and Wages Commission, “will soon be sorted out since the commission only require little time to update the records.”
Jimoh explained that the workers’ action was unpatriotic, insisting that the DG had achieved a lot that ought to be celebrated.
On the issue of the new 20 Peugeot 508 bought by the DG for some directors, Jimoh noted that some of the vehicles that the majority of the directors were using were old and no longer motorable for the tedious job they do.
“This accounted for the procurement of new ones to achieve the desired goals and objective of the agency,” he said.
He appealed to the striking workers to make patriotism their maxim, “so that we can collectively bail out the country from drug and food counterfeiters.”
The way out
But the workers insisted yesterday that all the issues they “raised must be tackled and implemented to the letter” before they would resume work.
