By Mabinty M. Kamara
Some of Sierra Leone’s COVID-19 front line workers have embarked on an indefinite strike action due to delay in payment of their incentives. The aggrieved workers who boycotted work on Monday, continued on Tuesday. They said they intended to push on until their backlog is paid.
The aggrieved workers include surveillance officers, contact tracers, case investigators, quarantine and psychosocial counselors, among other categories of workers. They say they haven’t received a dime from the government since the country began responding to the pandemic on March 31 this year.
The striking workers who are from the Western Area Urban, reported at the District Health Management Team (DHMT) office on Monday but boycotted the usual morning briefing which is attended by partners, including the World Health Organization (WHO).
The morning briefing is important to the work of the EOC because it feeds into the daily statistics on the number of confirmed cases, deaths, recoveries and people in quarantine.
“We want our incentives! We want our monies in full, before we could get back to work! We have risked our lives to serve our nation, so give us what is due us,” a group of 67 striking workers chanted as they stood outside the District Emergency Operations Center, which is located within the DHMT in Cline Town in the east end of Freetown.
Ibrahim Jalloh, not his real name, was one of the protesters. He said they intended to continue on the sit down strike until they receive their pay for work done from April 1 to May 31.
“None of our case investigators will go to the field. We were expecting that they could come to us to address the issue, but since they have held back, we will continue like this,” he told Politico.
Mohamed Vandi, also not his real name, is a Community Health Worker who serves as a surveillance officer. He said they felt betrayed by the authorities after serving their country with such huge risk.
“We have demonstrated our love for this country right from the time this war was declared, even though we knew it was going to be very risky as was with Ebola. But as of now, it’s been two months without getting any pay,” he said.
He added: “Some of us go to the field without even a recharge card being provided for us to call the people to investigate the cases. We have to use our own money to do that because we need to call and check on them. We also have challenges with vehicles. There are not enough vehicles. We will seat, we will not respond to any alert until all our funds are disbursed because it is really disheartening for people to be coming here at Cline Town every morning to collect alerts. It doesn’t tell well for us to be working without pay. As I speak, some of our colleagues have been infected and are at the treatment center.”
On the 21st of April this year, the government of Sierra Leone issued a press statement highlighting a weekly breakdown of risk allowances to health workers which was to cover the period from April 1. According to that statement, all technical workers should receive the sum of Le 1, 000, 000 per week, while quarantine home psychosocial and medical staff will receive Le750, 000 per week. Drivers and cleaners are to receive Le 500, 000.
This was part of a memorandum agreed between government and the various category of health workers.
The spokesman for the National Covid-19 Emergency Operation Center (NACOVERC), Solomon Jamiru, apologized for the delay in paying the workers, noting that it was caused by ongoing verification exercise which he said was necessary.
“The reason why we keep on talking about verification is because our assumption is that the COVID work force has also captured quite a good number of volunteers, who may not have gotten PIN Codes and may not have been captured in the database but have been providing critical services,” he said at the EOC’s daily press briefing on Monday.
He added: “I think the necessary stakeholders needed to clarify this because at the end of the day, you will have to be held financially accountable if you make payment and due process had not been followed.
On the same day, a statement from the Ministry of Finance indicated that some form of payment was due to start on Tuesday.
Copyright © 2020 Politico Online
