If urgent steps are not taken very fast by the government, a major industrial unrest might tear the National Health Insurance Scheme, NHIS, apart.
At the moment, the agency is battling with a looming crisis over alleged illegal recruitment (secondment) of senior staff, including General Managers from other organisations to NHIS, in flagrant violation of the Public Service Rules and other extant regulations governing the issue of secondment in the public service.
According to Vanguard, no fewer than 15 of such recruitments from the Northern part of the country were done, including a 32-year-old woman, who was elevated to General Manager in NHIS.
Investigations reveals that while 11 of the recruitments are from North West, including a driver that was also “imported” from another organisation into NHIS, they were placed on levels far above the levels they were in the organisations they were recruited from.
It was discovered that four of them, including the 32-year-old woman, were made Heads of Department and placed on grade level 15, equivalent to General Managers, as they enjoy all the entitlements of a General Manager.
Efforts to speak with the management of NHIS were abortive.
Already, organised labour has issued a 21-day ultimatum to the management of NHIS to reverse the perceived illegal recruitments or secondment, or all offices of the scheme nationwide, including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, would be shut.
Speaking through the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, ASCSN, labour insisted that a situation where people on grade level 10 in their former work-places are placed on grade level 15 at the NHIS was inconsistent with their qualifications and experience and same unacceptable.
In a statement, yesterday, ASCSN Secretary-General, Alade Bashir Lawal, lamented that efforts by the union to reach out to the Executive Secretary of NHIS, Professor Usman Yusuf, to have a change of heart and convene a meeting to discuss the perceived illegal secondment of staff into NHIS had been rebuffed.
According to him: “as a responsible trade union that believes so much in dialogue in settling dispute in work-places, we requested a meeting with the Executive Secretary to discuss the issue of illegal secondment with a view to resolving it only to be ignored on all occasions.”
ASCSN contended that till date, it had written four letters to the Executive Secretary on the need to summon a meeting to deliberate and resolve the matter which he deliberately refused to acknowledge.
“It is clear that the Executive Secretary is bent on running the organisation the way he likes. Indeed, he has been boasting that President Muhammadu Buhari gave him a mandate to do what he is doing and that he will run it as his personal estate,” the union said.
The ASCSN condemned what it termed “the emperor-style” the Executive Secretary used to import the officers into the NHIS illegally in flagrant violation of the public Service rules and other extant regulations governing the issue of secondment in the Public Service.
According to ASCSN Secretary-General, the 21–day ultimatum was also copied to the Vice President, Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, the Federal Ministries of Health, Labour and Employment, the Inspector-General of Police, the Director-General, State Security Services, the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, among others, to avail them of the development.
