The Federal Government, on Thursday, approved the payment of N25,000 of peculiar allowance for medical doctors and dentists in hospitals, medical centres, and clinics in the federal public service.

This was disclosed in a letter dated July 26, 2023, titled “Accoutrement allowance for medical and dental doctors in hospitals, medical centres, and clinics in federal MDAs.”

But the President of the Nigerian Medical Association, Dr Uche Ojinmah, said while the association was grateful that the government had taken a step regarding one of its agreements, it awaited the full implementation of the agreements they had.

A letter announcing the allowance on Thursday, read, “The Federal Government has approved the payment of an accouterment allowance of N25,000 per quarter to medical and dental doctors in hospitals, medical centres, and clinics in the federal public service. The allowance is to be paid from the overhead budget.

“The approval takes effect from June 1, 2023. All inquiries relating to this circular should be directed to the commission.”

But reacting in an interview with The PUNCH, the NMA President said, “The fundamental thing is that we are still studying it because what we agreed with them was 25 per cent and 35 per cent for salary and allowance, except hazard allowance, which was recently reviewed upwards; but what we saw was only for salary, and we do not know whether allowances are covered or not.

“For now, while we are grateful, they have started doing the right thing, we look forward to their doing it completely, agreement should be agreement as we had with the last administration. It was meant to take effect from January 2023. The agreement is that every increment is for salary and allowances but what we have seen is salary. So, we are waiting for allowances, by next week, we will put out our position.”