(Business in Cameroon) - It is now official! The employees of Cameroon Postal Services (Campost) faced issues concerning their salaries during the past months of July and August. This is at least what revealed the official communiqué issued at the end of a board meeting of this public company held on 30 and 31 August in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon. This document reveals, indeed, that the Board “instructed the Managing Director to pay the remainder of the July 2016 salaries, as well as the August and September salaries based on the 2014 Campost collective bargaining agreement, which was furthermore reneged”.

According to our sources, the MD of Campost, a government Inspector by profession, immediately upon his arrival at the head of this company found the salaries paid by the French management of Campost to be outrageous, as according to him, they neither followed the laws and regulations governing public companies in Cameroon, nor the status of Campost. So many practices which, the MD insisted to the Board, contributed to making “staff expenses unsustainable”.

An analysis which the Board approved. Indeed, though the board authorised this problematic salary grid to be applied until September 2016, this corporate body of Campost revoked said grid and adopted a new salary grid and other personnel benefits, which will be applied from October 2016, the above-mentioned communiqué highlighted.

Concurrently with the new salary grid and benefits which will certainly be inferior to those observed previously, we learned, the Board of Campost also decided to operate “a downward revision on the benefits given to the Managing Director and deputy Managing Director”. An audit of the human resources of the company was also prescribed.

As a reminder, before the appointment of Pierre Kaldadak as MD in July 2016, Campost had been managed by a team of senior officers from Sofrepost since 2010, as part of a technical assistance contract signed between this French company and the Cameroonian government.

Prior to Sofrepost, the Canadian firm Tecsult International Ltd was in charge of managing Campost between 2007 and 2009, within the framework of a similar contract; which unfortunately ended in treasury losses of FCfa 2 billion.

Brice R. Mbodiam