Kumba City Council holds crisis meeting after workers’ strike

The City Mayor of Kumba, Gregory Mewanu, called for an urgent meeting today after workers of the institution staged a strike action yesterday demanding for months of unpaid wages.

Reports say the crisis meeting will be chaired by the Senior Divisional Officer for Meme Division, Chamberlain Ntou’ou Ndong.

The City Mayor said the meeting aims to enlighten what he termed ‘misunderstandings’, but it is likely the meeting aims to address yesterday’s strike by Council workers.

“We are actually coordinating a very generalized staff meeting, which will be the right forum for misunderstandings, which have been existing till now, to be cleared,” Mr Mewanu said.

MMI reported how the Kumba City Council workers stormed the street yesterday morning with peace plants and placards and proceeded to lock down the council building demanding for eight months of unpaid salaries.

In placards posted on the City Council’s gate, the protesting workers claimed their children could not go to school and they were about losing their homes because they had no money to pay rents.

“Landlords are chasing us out of their houses,” read one of the messages that inundated the City Council building gate.

Reacting to the strike action, Gregory Mewanu claimed some innocent workers “had been pulled into a certain negative action for one reason or the other”. He said he was not “able to define” the strike action.

He said the workers who have been “contaminated” and “forced” into a strike action will, during today’s meeting, be able to explain what their grievances are all about.

By Amina Hilda