The Director General, National Emergency Management Agency, Mustapha Maihaja, on Tuesday told the Senate Committee on Special Duties that the industrial crisis in the agency had been resolved.
Maihaja, while appearing before members of the committee in Abuja over the dispute between the members of staff and management of NEMA, said the management had already started the implementation of a seven-point agreement it reached with the workers’ union.
According to him, the seven-point agreements are aimed at ensuring sustainable industrial harmony and smooth working environment in NEMA.
Maihaja noted that NEMA management was open for talks with the leadership of the union in order to address the issues causing disagreement.
The NEMA boss stated that the main issue the union raised was the recall of its members posted outside NEMA headquarters.
He also said the union’s members raised the issue of payment of their overtime and duty travel allowances involving over 788 workers.
Maihaja told the committee that in line with the agreement, over 200 members of staff had been paid while the payment of others was being processed.
He added that the payment of hazards allowance demanded by the union was also being worked out, while a framework for training and retraining of workers was being considered.
On separation of women from their husbands, the NEMA DG said he issued an instruction that any female member of staff who wanted to be reunited with her husband should write the management.
The DG also told the committee that the NEMA management was ever prepared to follow laid-down civil service procedure in matters of personnel promotion.
Maihaja said he was working to carry the union leadership along in order for its members to appreciate the practicability or otherwise of certain demands.
He said, “Above all demands, the interest of the organisation should always be paramount because without the organisation the union will not exist.”
The chairman of the committee, Senator Abdul-Azeez Murtala-Nyako, asked the NEMA boss to always work to drive the organisation in order to give it focus.
Murtala-Nyako stressed the need for continuous industrial harmony in NEMA “especially now that NEMA has a lot to do in all parts of the country.”
The lawmaker insisted that “whatever we do the bottom line is industrial peace and harmony.”
The chairman mandated Maihaja to furnish the committee with progress report of the implementation of the agreements reached with the workers.
Source: ( Punch Newspaper )