Confederations of Trade Unions lack credibility

   -Awah Cletus, civil society activist
By Njodzefe Nestor

Awah Cletus

The venerated civil society activist, Awah Cletus aka AC Risky has lamented that the so called Confederation of Trade Unions are pocket structures created by some government officials to frustrate genuine negotiations in order to defraud the state of taxpayers money.
    He was speaking at an emergency meeting of the Coalition of North West Civil Society Organizations held July 16, 2014 at Necla Hotel in Bamenda to deliberate and identify problems arising from the recent fuel price hike. 
    The meeting which brought together civil society activists, trade unionists and human rights activists recorded over 50 organizations.
    Awah Cletus lamented that when they were in Yaounde, he witnessed a masqueraded scenario whereby leaders were more interested in what they would gain than the interest of the common man. He wondered how the so-called Confederations of Trade Union submitted a memo to government in defiance of the regulation in force, “when we were in the hall, tracts were being circulated and we also observed that some of the leaders represented nobody,” he continued.

    He said that even those     who claimed they were representing bike riders had never ever sat on a bike (achaba).
    Transporters, he regretted were more interested in increasing transport fares to their benefit rather than the general good. Accordingly,  Awah Cletus observed that we cannot be talking of emerging when the GDP has dropped and at the same time the index of the country has dropped. “In fact I am afraid that our standard of living is rather dropping”.
     To Awah Cletus, if necessary measures are not taken to redress or put in place sustainable actions, it could lead to inflation, starvation and hunger. And since a hungry man is an angry man, peace could be at jeopardy.
    On his part, the Secretary General of the Cameroon Teachers Trade Union-CATTU said that the issue of salary increase is provocative. “Those who advise the government want to provoke a situation”. He decried that in Cameroon 22 taxes are paid on every liter of fuel and wondered why government could not cancel 10 of those taxes to stratify prices.
    On his part, the Coordinator of Organization for Consumer Sovereignty-OCOSO wondered whether the head of State is always told the truth by his collaborators. “I have been to Yaoundé severally on this issue, but unfortunately I have observed that government is always very adamant and irresponsible to the plight of the common man”.
    During deliberations, participants also observed that for over 20 years, nobody from the North West and South West Regions has ever headed a Confederation of Trade Unions. They observed that if Cameroonians have to be sacrificed because of Vision 2035, then the project should be abandoned. At the end of the meeting, participants took a firm stance that Government should reduce the price of fuel by FCFA 100.