Civil servants and people in uniform
should be smiling, even if grudgingly, after President Biya, Monday, decreed a
five percent salary increase to cushion the crushing impact of a rise in fuel
prices. The increase which does not correspond to the jump in petrol and
cooking gas prices is however seen in the proverbial logic that “half a bread
is better than none.”
The speed at which President Biya signed an ordinance to institute the wage
increase in civil service and military salaries underlines the sensitivity of
the petrol hikes which was announced by the secretary general in the prime
minister’s office, Louis Paul Motaze on June 30.Given the multiplier effect of
the fuel hikes that would eventually take up the prices of foodstuffs,
transportation and even rents, the masses who do not earn salaries or are
unemployed will bear the devastating burden.
Even though the five percent is considered by some analysts as
insignificant to workers, it is however a whooping amount on the wage bill. Finance
minister, Alamine Ousmane Mey has explained that the decision will add some 30
billion francs on government’s annual expenditure.
Recognising that civil servants, estimated at about 200 000 are just
about one percent of the population; other salutary measures have also been put
in place to appease the business community especially the transport sector. Vehicle
parking taxes have been reduced as much as by 50 percent for trucks, buses,
taxi cabs and even bikes.
Transporters, hardest hit in the
soaring fuel cost immediately announced strike action while some plying the
Yaounde, Douala, North West and South West roads unilaterally raised fares. But
when the government reminded the transport unions that eight days notice was
required by law for any strike, intense negotiations between ministers and the
union leaders hastily kicked-off. The unions and the state have one month to
take a decision.
But what is for now beyond quibble is that transport fares will go up. By how
much? That is what remains to be ironed out by the unions and government who
are leaving no stone unturned to come to an amicable agreement that will
prevent any strike action.
The havoc the February 2008 fuel fatal strike caused the nations is still
sadly fresh in memory. The regime has
deployed some seven ministers on the field to ensure there is no repeat of the
2008 riots which could disrupt public peace. Such a strike could open the way
for the dreaded Boko Haram terrorists to take advantage of it and inflict more
harm in a society whose vast majority hollow in the lowest depth
of misery due to unemployment.
While civil
servants may be jubilating over the announced five percent increase in salary,
it must be pointed out that many of them are cheats. Most of them are ghost and
absentee workers. It is an ill as The
Guardian Post has had occasion to say before, that must be stamped out of
the civil service and the defaulters made to return their loot. After-all,
isn’t it said that to him more is given, more is expected? The civil service
owes Cameroonians a duty to serve them to the best of their abilities.
In raising the
wage package of government workers and providing other fringe benefits for
transporters, the government must be minded that the overwhelming majority of
Cameroonians are small scale farmers and traders who have no benefit from the
government’s largesse. They are the ones to face the brunt especially in moving
their crops from the farms to the urban markets. Their expectation from the
negotiations would be for government to ensure that the increase in transport
fares should be within the region of five percent.
If the rates go
above that, farmers and traders will surely inflate their own prices and the
twirling effect will take out any extra money the state wants to put in the
pockets of the privileged citizens on its payroll.
Government must
also see to it that the crowded police and gendarme check points on the roads
are brought down to the minimum. Cameroonians who shuttle daily on public
transport will confirm that these control points are often used more to extort
from transporters and passengers than check high way crimes.
Inflation, as
the minister of finance has rightly said, will go up by some two percent. That
does not mean anything to the rich embezzlers with juicy government jobs. They
are selfish and greedy. The government most ensure that the money earned from
the rise in fuel prices is judiciously and transparently used and not embezzled
or misappropriated.
The
Guardian Post believes that Cameroon has found itself where it is
today with such draconian measures because of the impunity of corruption,
embezzlement and misappropriation. Cameroon is the fifth largest producer of
oil in Africa, the sixth largest producer of cocoa in the world and a major timber
producing country, not to talk of its tourism, other mineral and agricultural
potentials.
But as President
Biya has often said: “we have all” but why has the country in the first place
slipped to the sorry position we are in it today? President Biya asked the
question whose answer is yet to be provided, but The Guardian Post insists that a sweeping people-oriented
government long over due should provide the answer. This, no doubt, would
enable Cameroonians have the feel good effects of their resources; whether they
are civil servants or in the informal sector of the economy.
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