Kumba City Council workers protest months of unpaid salaries

Workers of the Kumba City Council, in the Meme Division of the South West Region, stormed the street this morning with peace plants and proceeded to lock down the council building, demanding that their accumulated salaries be paid.

On placards posted on the City Council’s gate, the protesting workers claimed their salaries had not been paid for eight months now.

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

They also said the City Council should “Pay our eight months salary,” adding that, “Our children need to go to school”.

The City Mayor, Gregory Mewanu, has yet to publicly react to the strike action.

Workers at Kumba III Council have also been agitating lately and threatening to go on strike over 15 months of unpaid salaries.

Last week, one of them told MMI they were in distress. He alleged that the Kumba III Mayor was deliberately withholding their salaries.

“Money has come from Yaounde to clear the number of months, but our mayor and the treasurer are sitting on the money. Landlords are giving quit notice to staff occupying their houses. Children need to go to school,” said the worker, who preferred anonymity.

Municipal Councils in Kumba and other parts of the English-speaking Regions of Cameroon have been struggling to stay afloat due to the ongoing armed conflict that has crumbled their income sources.

Some Municipal Councils only function partially, while others have been forced to lay off some workers due to the crisis.

In line with its decentralisation agenda, the government has allocated several billions of francs to partially finance local and Regional Councils.

In a decree signed on September 6, President Paul Biya approved the disbursement of FCFA 252.5 billion into the Common Decentralisation Fund, which aims to fund the operations of Regional and Municipal Councils.

These funds, it appears, have yet to reach the disgruntled workers of Kumba III and Kumba City Councils.