Cameroon suspends salaries of 7000 state employees

The salaries of 3000 civil servants and 4000 contract workers have been suspended making a total of 7000 state functionaries who risk dismissal by 29th April 2016. The Minister of Public Service and Administrative Reforms revealed that the new computerized integrated system for the management of state workers and the pay role seeks to attribute each worker to a duty post.

Since the operation was launched, some 7000 workers on government's pay role were feared to be ghost workers because they failed to identify with any service. In a bid to clean up the payroll, the salaries of 4000 contract workers were suspended in January 2016 pending their identification and in March the salaries of about 3000 civil servants were also not paid. 

Officials in charge of the SIGIPES II project say the April 29th deadline is intended to allow time for workers in rural area and those who were sick and did not identify themselves earlier to do so. The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Public Service and Administrative Reforms, Charles Ako Takem observed recently that in December 2015, some few month after SGIPES II was launched, a list of 10000 contract workers and 14000 civil servants who had not been identified was published. Since then a good number of them have regularized their situation. He noted emphatically that those workers who unduly abandoned their duty or traveled abroad will be systematically dismissed or sacked from the public service.