By Chukwuemeka Opara
Abakalik – Dr Emeka Ogah, Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki (FETHA), says that the hospital’s staff do not receive salaries directly from the hospital.
Ogah, while reacting to allegation of salary padding from an online media outfit, told newsmen on Sunday in Abakaliki that its staff like other Federal Government (FG) owned establishments, receive their salaries through the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
He said that contrary to allegations by the online outfit, the hospital did not give or collect staff salaries since IPPIS’s inception.
“It therefore, behoves that since we do not pay staff salaries for several years, the issue of salary padding should not be connected to the hospital’s management.
“A hospital that has a well-constituted, incorruptible board of management cannot be accused of having two persons who turn it into their private establishment.
“The allegation cannot be feasible with the current FG’s anti-corruption crusade and the application of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) in its transactions.
“I am still living alongside other doctors, including junior workers, in a flat I have been occupying since working as a doctor at the hospital.
“This is in spite of the fact that I am the CMD and in my fourth year in office,” he said.
Ogah said that the media outfit’s allegation of maladministration was unfounded as the management had attracted several health-enhancing facilities and interventions, to the hospital.
“The facilities include: Lassa Fever Diagnostic Centre built and equipped by the Ebonyi Government and donated to the Federal Ministry of Health.
“We also attracted the donation of lassa fever consumables, including incinerators from the Doctors Without Borders and the free medical outreach by the T.Y Danjuma foundations among other interventions,” he said.
He regretted that the online outfit declined several invitations by the hospital’s management to visit it and verify its claims for an objective reportage.
“The writer claimed that he does not know where Abakaliki is located and we gave him direction on how to locate the town from Lagos, his supposed base.
“I call on media outfits across the country and the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) to regulate and sanction such journalists to protect the integrity of the profession,” he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the online outfit based in Lagos in its report, accused the FETHA management of financial impropriety and maladministration among other allegations.
