Plans to include church health workers in government payroll

THE Government is looking at a unified pay system that will include the health workers of the Church Health Services (CHS) under the Government’s payroll, Prime Minister James Marape says.
Marape said this would be according to the budget and according to the weekly budget management scheduled by the departments of Treasury, Finance and National Planning.
He was responding to questions by the Obura-Wonenara MP Mehra Kipefa on the disparity in salary between the government and CHS-employed health workers and the slow decline in services in rural areas by the CHS due to funding constraints.
“In our National Health Plan (2021-2031) that is before us, we are looking at how best we can amplify the role of churches in picking up the health sector as well as the education sector,” he said.
“Two of our big sectors that in our view, we feel that churches could be stepped up and we are looking at the church health service sector similar to what is happening in the education space.
“In the education sector there was a reform back when I was the education minister we migrated those teachers who were paid individually by the churches to a one unified payroll system.”