By Umaru Fofana just back from Kailahun
The community health officer at the Buedu health centre in the eastern Kailahun district has complained bitterly over the non-payment of hazard allowance to him and his staff even before the abolition of the special incentive.
Amadu Kanneh, who supervises health centres in the Kissi Tongay chiefdom, told Politico that he had still not received his hazard pay for January, February and March and that many of his colleagues were still owed for October 2014 to March 2015.
The man who also supervises the burial teams in the chiefdom said that despite all efforts, including travelling to the NERC headquarters in Freetown, he was still owed his entitlement.
He said no records existed at the NERC hazard centre about his health centre which he said was shocking.
“They said my name was on the list but that it had a ‘red tape’ which they said meant that I was an absentee worker. That was what hurt me the most” he said.
He said that troubled him the most because he had been in charge of the facility even predating the outbreak of Ebola.
Kanneh went on that he had been promised his pin number but that a list that was displayed in the district headquarter town of Kailahun indicated that his name was “false.” He said he raised this with the Kailahun District Medical Officer who assured him that it was “a minor problem” that would be dealt with but that it still remained unresolved.
To the nodding in approval and expression of disappointment and feeling of neglect by his colleagues, Kanneh said he and four of his staff at the health centre had gone unpaid, as well as several other workers at five other Ebola response centres including traditional birth attendants who had been drafted into the response.
The spokesman for NERC, Sidi Yahyah Tunis, expressed surprise assuring he would take it up with the authorities.
(C) Politico 23/06/15
