Contempt: Court Jails FMC CMD

James Sowole in Akure

For disobeying the court order on the payment of salaries of resident doctors, the Industrial Court, Akure, Ondo State, Monday sentenced the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Owo, Dr. Liasu Ahmed, to one month imprisonment.

Ahmed was sued by the FMC Owo chapter of the Association of Residents Doctors (ARD) on his alleged refusal to pay its members their October and November 2016 salaries and the court granted the prayers of the plaintiffs ordering him to pay them one of the two months salaries.

However, the CMD was said to have refused to pay the doctors following an order of no-work-no-pay which he effected on the doctors of the federal government-owned hospital.

Ahmed was said to have paid the salaries of the doctors during the period they were on strike for three months in 2016 but after the doctors returned to work in October 2016, he issued a circular that they should not be paid for months they did not work for.

He insisted that since they had been paid when they were on strike, they must work for the money they collected during the strike, when they did not work.

Details later…