“Give
us 500M or we embark on nationwide strike”
By Amindeh Blaise Atabong in Yaounde
It is now emerging from within government circles that
some presidents of transporters’ syndicates are piling pressure on the Yaounde
authorities to give them a 500MFCFA bribe or they will cause members to embark
on a nationwide strike.
A senior government official who has taken part in all
the negotiations with the transporters hinted The Guardian Post on condition of
anonymity yesterday: “Can you believe that presidents of transporters’
syndicates are asking government to bribe them with 500MFCFA or else they will
call for a nationwide strike?”
 |
| Minister Robert Nkilli |
Asked what government was doing to meet the
bribe-demand from the transporters, our informant retorted: “So you think
government has 500MFCFA lying idle somewhere and yet is increasing fuel prices?
You must be kidding Mr. Journalist…” He however confessed that all government
has been able to do is accepting the demand by transporters to increase
transport fares and reducing the amounts paid for some transport documents.
Contacted to comment on the allegation, made by the
senior government official, one of the syndicates’ presidents, Samen Patrick of
the Taxi Drivers’ Union qualified it as baseless; questioning: “Who gave you
that information?,” but quickly added: “ I know the ministers themselves are
the ones spreading that information…”. He however disclosed that the only money
he is aware government gave out was the 30.000FCFA each that was shared out to
transporters who travelled from Douala.
Quizzed to say if government on the other hand had
tried to bribe them to call off the planned nationwide strike, Samen retorted:
“Can these ministers give a franc to anybody?”
It should be
noted that the Yaounde authorities had in
a spirited effort to avoid a repeat of the 2008 deadly riots that swept across
the country, dispatched seven government
ministers to beg transporters to call off a nationwide strike that would have
been staged two weeks ago.
The first of such meetings
took place at the ministry of transport with the ministers of transport,
labour and social security, commerce, the delegate general for national
security, the secretary of state in-charge of the gendarmerie and a
representative of the minister of finance in attendance.
Apparently smarting from the disagreement that characterised
meeting and without wanting to leave anything to chance, President Biya, The
Guardian Post gathered, instructed the minister of labour and social security,
Gregoire Owona, to hold another crisis meeting with some twenty representatives
of transporters’ syndicates.
It was during that meeting between the minister of labour
and social security and some twenty transporters’ syndicates that both parties
reached an agreement to call off the planned nationwide strike. Labour and
social security minister, we learnt, was not only more than submissive at the
meeting but pleaded with the transporters, virtually on bended knees to call off
today’s announced industrial action. He took the commitment on behalf of the
Yaounde authorities to see into the concerns that were raised by transporters
as a result of government’s decision to increase the prices of petroleum
products.
Announcing the decision to call off strike action, the
national president of Taxi Transporters’ Syndicate, Patrice Samen warned that
they were giving government only a month to address their grievances or should
be ready to face the music. Hear him: ‘‘If after one month, government fails to
address our grievances, we would mobilise over two hundred syndicates to join
us in a nationwide strike’’.
While the minister of labour and social security was
instructed to sweet-talk transporters to call off the strike, that of commerce,
Mbarga Atangana Luc Magloire was dispatched to Douala, same day to plead with
economic operators not to increase the prices of basic commodities. Government,
he told businessmen in three different markets visited, had taken necessary
measures to ensure that the increase in fuel prices does not affect the prices
of goods and foodstuffs.
Another government official dispatched to calm down rising
tempers was the minister of public works, Patrice Amba Salla who struggled to
convince public opinion in media outings that the money which government would
have used to subsidize fuel would now be directed to carrying out several
public projects in the country.
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