The Ondo State Government has said insufficient fund in 2019 is the reason why it had not been able to pay striking doctors.

The government said the delay in the payment of the doctors’ salaries was caused by inability to appropriate funds in its year 2019 budget for the state teaching hospital operating both in Ondo town and Akure.

In May 2019, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu signed a bill establishing a multi-locational University of Medical Sciences Teaching Hospital into law months after the House of Assembly gave its nod for the year’s appropriation bill.

Speaking with SaharaReporters, Dr Jibayo Adeyeye, Special Adviser on Health Matters to Governor Akeredolu, said the teaching hospital had to run on little funds generated internally from the government health facility,

According to him, the hospital management had in the heat of the unpaid salaries and arrears last year agreed with the medical practitioners to pay just 33 doctors with the available funds without any preference.

He said, “So, during that period the money that was available was not enough to pay all resident doctors and they were given priority in payment arrangement.

“Now only the newly employed doctors and those yet to do proper filling of their documents with the management were affected by the unpaid salaries.

“But the resident doctors and other workers on the teaching hospital’s payroll would begin to receive their salaries as and when due in the next three weeks.

“The reason is that the hospital would have started operating the 2020 budget that was signed into law in December.