by Robert Manyara
NAIVASHA, Kenya, March 8 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and County governors on Tuesday issued an ultimatum to doctors who have been striking for the last three months to return to work or face severe consequences.
Kenyatta, who held a joint news conference in Naivasha, about 90 km northwest of Nairobi, also cancelled a 145 million U.S. dollars offer it earlier made to backdate allowances to July 2016 out of goodwill, which the striking doctors had repudiated.
"This additional offer was on condition that the doctors call off the strike and report back to work, this morning. Consequently for failure to call off the strike, the government has now rescinded this offer and there will be no further negotiations on remuneration (salaries and allowances)," they said in a joint statement.
Governors also asked Kenyatta to issue an executive order taking away the role of registering doctors from their union back to the government.
The government made it clear that strenuous efforts had been made to reach an amicable solution with the doctors but they have remained intransigent.
The standoff between the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union (KMPDU) and the government continues with union officials maintaining a hard-liner stance, refusing to call off the strike until the 2013 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is fully implemented.
KMPDU is demanding a 300 percent salary increase for its members as agreed in the CBA says the lowest paid doctor to get earn 3,450 U.S. dollars while the highest should be earning 9,450 dollars.
However, the government has offered a 500 dollars or 50 percent increase for the lowest paid doctors, which would have raised their salaries to 1,760 dollars but unions rejected it and walked out of talks.
The doctors rejected a 50 percent salary increment and an additional 6 million dollars, as backdated allowances, that was offered as a sign of goodwill. These offers would have pushed the doctors annual wage bill to an excess of 145 million dollars.
But doctors rejected the offer, and returned to their demand for a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) to be signed.
Governors noted that the 2013 document referred to by doctors is obsolete, and that a new CBA could only be agreed in consultation with individual counties and the Salary and Remuneration Commission (SRC).
"It is now time for the die to fall as they may; and for each individual doctor, pharmacists and dentists within the public service to negotiate with his/her particular employer, be it the national government in the case of those working in national facilities, or in the particular county government," they said.
The government said doctors who continued being on duty will receive the new allowances. Those who went on strike but want to resume work should do so immediately.
All postgraduate medical students (registrars) who are sponsored by the government are to report to their respective Duty Stations with immediate effect.
The government directed medical Interns who are currently on internship to report back to their respective internship centers with immediate effect, in order to complete their internship and facilitate registration by the Board.
Earlier, Kenyatta had launched a passionate address on the strike, saying that it was time for doctors to uphold their oath to protect life, and to uphold the principle of fairness.
Kenyatta said his patience, and that of governors, with the striking doctors has run out because they were taking Kenyans for a ride.
The President said the government had offered the doctors pay that was even higher that earned by doctors in private practice.
He said the doctors were trying to blackmail the government by denying their services to the poor while serving the well to do.
"We need clarity about the consequences of their strike: the better off still have access to a doctor's care, while poorer Kenyans must do without," said the President when he officially opened the 4th Annual Devolution Conference.
"We have offered these doctors more money than those working in private hospitals. All that money just for working for a few hours in public hospitals before they rush to their private practices. They should not take us for fools," Kenyatta said.
