Public service:

PM Yang orders retired civil servants to go

By EssanEkoninyam in Yaounde

Yang Philemon

A circular signed recently urges members of government to make sure retired persons leave their respective services at the right time

Retired state agents who are still in active service may be spending their last days in office. A circular recently signed by Prime Minister Philemon Yang and addressed to members of government calls on them to identify and flush out such persons from the services of their respective ministries.

                In the circular, the PM points out that it has come to his notice on many occasions that the rules governing the retirement of civil servants are no longer systematically respected in some administrations, and this causes them to be discriminatorily applied. This situation, he goes on, constitutes a flagrant violation of the functioning rules and principles of the management of the human resources of the state as contained in the general statute of the public service as well as the different particular and special statutes.

                Philemon Yang reminds the ministers that any manoeuvre aimed at delaying the retirement of a state agent or prolonging their stay in the public service is an infringement on the directives of the President of the Republic. This directive is contained in the general instruction given by the latter wherein ministers must see to it that civil servants placed under their authority and are due retirement must effectively quit the services on time, if they are having a duty post, and temporarily replaced by their collaborators.

                According to the Prime Minister, the continual presence of retired persons in the different administrations poses a judicial risk as far as the acts they might commit there are concerned.  In addition, he says, their cohabitation with state agents in a regular situation could be a source of tension and conflict.

                Except the extension of a retiree’s stay in office is ordered by presidential decree, PM Yang maintains, they must go on retirement in accordance with the rules of the applicable statutory provisions.

                For an effective management of personnel and in order to ensure a good application of his circular, the PM urges the different ministers to establish at the beginning of every financial year, with the help of the competent services of their respective ministries, a list of all the workers who would go on retirement in the year in question. A copy of each of such lists, he says, should be forwarded to the prime minister’s office.

                On the basis of this list, Philemon Yang added, the ministers should make sure their collaborators concerned are notified of their retirement and leave their services at the right time.