By Joke Adeniyi-Jackson
The Medical Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN), Kwara State council, has said the 2018 budget as presented by the state government does not reflect the interest of labour unions.
The state Governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed had presented a budget estimate of N181.8 billion for 2018 financial year to the state House of Assembly, penultimate week.
Speaking on the sideline of a workshop /seminar organised by the union in Ilorin recently, the state Chairman, Comrade Muritala Olayinka decried the non inclusion of labour union in the budget preparation process.
He said that the two strongholds of labour in the state; the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) were not carried along during the budget preparation.
“That is one of the problems that we have with the state government. We have two main unions; the NLC and the TUC, but they were not consulted during the budget preparation.
“Had it been the unions were consulted for input, the state government would have knowledge of the challenges facing the various unions.
“Through that the state government would have been able to determine the appropriate welfare packages for respective unions in the state for industrial harmony.
But, with the way things are presently, the interest of labour is not touched in the 2018 budget that was presented by the state government,” he lamented.
The labour leader, however, called on the state government to pay premium to the rehabilitation of hospitals and health care centres in the state as well as training and retraining of health workers for effective healthcare service delivery.
Muritala also appealed to the present administration to address the upward review of salary scale of health workers as effected for medical doctors in the state.
