Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero and the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union officials have denied reports the medics in the county have been paid for the 100 days they were on strike.
The industrial action started on December last year, with doctors demanding a 300 per cent pay rise. They were also pushing for the implementation of the collective barganing agreement signed in 2013.
There were claims the governor had secretly instructed his officers to find the cash and pay the medics. But Kidero said the reports are false, adding there was no justification to pay them because they did not work.
“We cannot and will not pay them. That has been and is our stand. We only pay our workers for the days they work,” the governor said.
Kidero said such payments would amount to charity work, which is not provided for in the county laws.
The Labour court on October 6 last year declared the strike illegal and ordered doctors to resume work immediately.
The KMPDU Nairobi branch secretary Thuranira Kaugiria said the medics have not been paid.
“I am making a formal complaint to all the media houses that quoted me saying that doctors have been paid. Such reports are untrue,” Kaugiria said on the phone.
“We only paid the doctors for the month of March because that was the time they resumed work,” Kidero said in a phone interview yesterday.
Two weeks ago, President Uhuru Kenyatta ordered all governors to pay the doctors. But the Council of Governors defied the directive saying, “they cannot pay for work not done.”
The strike was called off on March 14 after a new CBA was signed by doctors and
Health CS Cleopa Mailu, PS Nichola Muraguri, Council of Governors chairman Peter Munya and KMPDU secretary general Ouma Oluga.