Conspiracy or Oversight?

Cameroon Public Service auctioned to foreigners?

Jean Mark Bikoko

The leader of the confederation of public sector workers has described government’s validation of a project to privatize the management of the careers and salaries of state functionaries as a crime against humanity. Jean Mark Bikoko also qualified the SIGIPES 2 project as a time bomb and a weapon of mass destruction. He said after auctioning the countries water and electricity to foreigners the government was now considering giving out the management of the careers of civil servants to foreigners.
    He was speaking at a press conference in Yaounde, on Thursday to launch a strong advocacy against what he described as a conspiracy by some unpatriotic individuals in the ministries of Public service and administrative reforms and that of finance, to defraud the state of billions of FCFA.
    “On the basis of a fake report presented by the MINFOPRA on “the Evaluation of the project to deconcentrate the management of state personnel”, the prime minister has validated the SIGIPES 2 project and endorsed the privatization of the management of the careers and salaries of civil servants and state agents,” noted Jean Mark Bikoko in a printed press statement that he distributed to participants at the conference.

    Bikoko said after carryout a careful study he  came to the conclusion that the SIGIPES 2 was conceived by some officials of MINFOPRA and MINFI who are only out to share the spoils from the project. He said the new project (SIGIPES 2) was hatched because of the conflicts and the difficulty that characterized the exploitation of the old one (SIGIPES 1).
    “Despite the huge financial sacrifices made by government, the application of SIGIPES 1 was frustrated by some unscrupulous officials of the MINFI, who felt that the project was only profitable to MINFOPRA technicians and had no consideration for the operators of the “ANTILOPE” at MINFI,” explained Bikoko.
    He added “The SIGIPES 1 project drains billions of FCFA and officials of the MINFI (CENADI, direction of salaries, division of networks etc) felt they were left out of the sharing process and so they did everything to frustrate it.”    
    He explained further that the SIGIPES was conceived to replace all existing mechanisms for managing the careers and salaries of state workers including ANTILOPE which initially exclusively managed salaries of workers.
    But because of the incapacity of MINFOPRA technicians to make the SIGIPES workable, this partly due to lack of collaboration from MINFI technicians, who preferred to continue applying the ANTILOPE because of the enormous personal gains they were making from it, the SIGIPES therefore proved impracticable.
    When dring a cabinet meeting the minister of public service presented the difficulties encountered in applying the SIGIPES-1 and proposed a new project (SIGIPES-2), the Prime Minister immediately endorsed the new SIGIPES project which consecrates the management of the careers and salaries of state workers to a private foreign firm.
    CSP considers this as scandalous and unacceptable. Jean Mark Bikoko has called for an immediate halt to the conspiracy and the continued application of SIGIPES-1 which if well exploited will solve the problems created by MINFI officials.
    But over and above, Bikoko called for the unconditional re-establishment of workers salaries to the pre-1992 level and a revalorization by 30% to meet up with the present cost of living in Cameroon.
    “This is the message that workers of the public sector are sending to government as we begin preparations ahead of the 128th International Labour Day to be celebrated on 1st may,” Bikoko concluded.