By Umaru Fofana
Over a dozen lab technicians, contact tracers and suppliers have separately and at different times reached out to Politico to complain about non-payment of their weekly allowances or pay for at least five weeks.
One of them even alleged that no test results were announced on Tuesday – when zero new infections were reported – because of a brief strike action by lab technicians.
Such is how severe the situation is that if urgent steps are not taken quarantined homes could be abandoned and treatment centres would go without food and water, our investigations reveal.
There are different categories of workers at the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) ranging from people who are on secondment from other Government departments, those who work for donor projects and those who are otherwise unemployed.
The Interim Executive Director of the EOC and Minister of Defence, Brigadier (Rtd) Kellie Conteh, has confirmed that no one has been paid since 1 April – excepting allowances given to them during the two three-day lockdowns.
He appealed for patience saying it would be resolved “in the coming days”. He said the delay was because the finance ministry wanted to do due diligence to be sure that those receiving salary from the consolidated revenue fund did not end up getting doubly paid by the state.
“They [finance ministry] are taking their time to categorise all of us to know those who are in government employ or donor-funded”, or those who are not employed at all.
He said the finance ministry was also thinking about the rate to be paid the workers. “The Government cannot afford to pay the huge amounts that were paid during the Ebola outbreak”, he said, when some got paid thousands of dollars and even up to $ 12,000 a month. He said donor funding for COVID-19 which is affecting every country in the world, was not as it was during Ebola. He said donors were only paying for health workers, and that that money had now been unlocked and would be paid to them soon.
Many of the COVID-19 responders, especially surveillance workers, have expressed grave concern over their non-payment. “How do we carry out such a high risk job without being paid?” one asked. Some have threatened that if payment was not made by next week they would stop work.
Those who supply quarantined homes and treatment centres are also said to be livid at the non-payment. But the EOC boss said he was concerned with fiscal discipline, and that the contract he inherited was unfair to the state.
He said Le 160,000 for food was being charged per person per day by the suppliers, something he said was shocking considering what was being supplied. He wants the contract renegotiated and given to more contractors for efficiency and quality and at a “reasonable cost”.
Many patients in treatment centres have complained about the “poor quality” of food being supplied. Two patients at the FBC isolation unit say they get given one sachet of water at a time.
Our investigations reveal that quarantined homes get given uncooked rice and condiments to cook themselves, so it is unclear how come the supplier is charging for people in quarantine per person, per day.
Politico could not reach to the supplier for their comment.
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