Chantier Naval on fire again! Current, ex-workers on gov’t’s throat over unpaid salaries, dues!.

Top among these are demands for months of unpaid salary arrears and dues owed others by government.   

From close to two weeks of protest by heath workers in the capital city, there is that of former temporal workers of the Cameroon Shipyard and Industrial Engineering Company, CNIC, better known by its French acronym Chantier Naval, as well as current workers of the state corporation.

The ex-temporal workers of Chantier Naval on Wednesday June 7 beseeched the entrance of the Prime Minister’s Office, to pressure the Head of Government to take urgent actions for money owned them to be paid.

The placards-carrying ex-temporal workers said they were out to send a distress call to the Head of Government over unexplained delays in the disbursement of their funds. 

The ex-workers said the protest is an opportunity to appeal to the Prime Minister to give fresh instructions for the dues owed them for over a decade, to be coughed out from state coffers. 

“We have come to tell the Prime Minister that the instruction he gave has not been executed,” one of the protesters, Tikum Fred Nya, told reporters. Tikum said what is owed them is worth over one billion FCFA.

“They disbursed four billion FCFA to pay us the ex-temporal workers and this money was not fully paid to us because there was manipulation,” he explained. 

He continued: “They said they were supposed to give us one billion to calm down the situation while they were working on the 2.6 billion FCFA. That was in 2019”.

Tikum regretted that as at the time of the protest, the 562 ex-temporal workers have not been in possession of the said money.

The 562 ex-temporal workers said they have been mounting pressure on the Ministry of Finance to release the money to no avail, for the past ten years.

They were laid off in 2010 after the former General Manager, Antoine Bikoro, took over from his now detained predecessor, Zaccheus Forjindam.

In November 2018, former temporary workers of the company took their protest over years of unpaid arrears to the esplanade of the Prime Minister’s Office.

Protests continue in Douala 

While the ex-temporal workers were protesting in the nation’s political capital, the workers of the corporation were continuing with their strike action over months of unpaid salaries in the economical capital, Douala.  

Reports we gathered June 7, indicated that combat ready security officers were seen at the scene of the protest. Reports hold that the officers, with water cannons, were ready to displace the protesting workers. 

The Guardian Post cannot independently confirm reports that the workers were displaced by the security with the use of water cannons.  

It should be recalled that disgruntled Chantier Naval workers had weeks back, in a letter addressed to the General Manager of the company, given a seven-day ultimatum and threatened an indefinite strike action over months of unpaid salaries.

The workers in the letter were asking among other things, three months of unpaid salaries and several unsettled allowances. The angry workers cited “difficulties faced by the General Management in paying the salaries of its employees since November 2022”, “the non-payment of the 13th month of 2022 and considering that the salaries of the months of February, March and April 2023, have not been paid to date,” among other things as reasons for their strike. 

They also mentioned the “absence of social dialogue between the General Management and the delegates of the CNIC”.

“Failure to this, we will be obliged to observe an indefinite work stoppage in all CNIC sites, until our demands are fully met,” the workers had threatened. 

Chantier Naval not new to strikes

Chantier Naval has known no peace since 2008, following the sacking and subsequent imprisonment of then General Manager, Zacchaeus Mogwe Forjindam, over embezzlement allegations. 

For years now, over 1,200 former temporary workers of the company have been demanding retrenchment benefits, but the authorities say only 350 qualify for the payment.

In March 2012, 30 demonstrators, who were part of a group of 350 former workers of Chantier Naval, who were due to be paid separation bonuses after they were retrenched some years back, stormed the company in protest. 

After series of crisis meetings, the company agreed to pay the 350 former temporary workers some 525 million FCFA. 

On March 16, 2021, workers of the company downed their tools demanding 13 months of unpaid salaries and emoluments. Several other protest actions have taken place at the company in recent years. 

Since the sacking of Forjindam, Chantier Naval has had several General Managers including Antoine Bikoro Alo’o, South Korea’s Moo Kwi Ho, Bernard Bayiha, Seoung-Rok Yang, the late Alfred Forgwei Mbeng and now Roland Maxime Aka’a Ndi’i. The changes in management have however failed to resolve the concerns of workers over the years.