Corps members protest in Kaduna over allowances
Members of the National Youth Service Corps in Kaduna on
Thursday protested against the non-payment of their eight-month
allowances by the Kaduna State Government.
Those affected were both 2011 Batch ‘C’ and 2012 Batch ‘A’ doctors
serving with the state government. Each doctor serving with the state
government is being owned N664,000 for the eight months.
Also affected are other medical workers such as pharmacists and
medical laboratory scientists of the 2011 batch ‘C’ and 2012 batch ‘A’
serving in the Kaduna State Ministry of Health.
Addressing journalists at the Nigeria Union of Journalists
secretariat in Kaduna, leader of the protesting medical workers, Dr.
Musa Atiku, said the government agreed to pay N83,000 each for those of
them serving with the state after four months of the commencement of
their service.
Atiku added that to ensure that the state fulfilled its own part of
the agreement, they had implored several channels to prevail on the
state government but to no avail.
Atiku said, “We were told that after four months the state government
will begin to pay us our allowances with which we can use to keep body
and soul going. However, we were short of words when after the
expiration of the agreed months our allowances were not forth coming.
“Initially, we reported our plight to our respective NYSC Local
Government Inspectors but we were referred to Zonal Inspectors, from
there to the state coordinator. We made attempt at that levels but it
was not working out as expected. We were given the deserved attention.
“We went to the Ministry of Health and the commissioner, Turaki
Kalid, referred us to ministry of Economic Planning and on reaching
there we were told the person we were supposed to see was not on sit.
“We kept going there consistently until somebody advised us that the
only way we could get the attention of the authority concern is to go to
the press, which explains why we are here.”
