allAfrica.com: Cameroon: Camair Dumps 800 Workers (Page 1 of 2)

A rather abrupt communiqué dated May 27 and signed by co-liquidator, Emile Bekolo of Bekolo and Partners has put some 800 employees of the Cameroon Airlines, CAMAIR, in the streets.

The co-liquidator of the company in charge of financial affairs informed the workers that Friday May 30 was to be their last day working for the company.The workers were advised to remove their personal effects and hand over office keys before leaving their various offices or work sites on that May 30.

Also branches of CAMAIR at home and abroad were instructed by the same communiqué to end their activities on May 30.One of the leaders of the group of syndicates in the airlines sector, René Ekedi, described the decision to suddenly end the contract of CAMAIR workers as "brutal."

Ekedi, who retired from CAMAIR a few years back and who was the president of the workers' representatives for a number of years, noted that the CAMAIR employees were thrown into the streets without a franc of their dues having been paid.

It is worth noting that before the termination act, the workers had not been paid for four months.Bekolo, in his communiqué, promised that all workers' dues would be paid. The Post, however, learnt that the official representatives of the workers led by their president, Pierre Marie Essimi, accompanied by leaders of the other syndicates will travel to Yaounde today, June 2, to push for concrete arrangements with the authorities on the payment of the dues.

Following the sudden closure of CAMAIR, the American company, Ansett, is reportedly insisting to grab the company's lone aircraft for the debts CAMAIR owes it.

World Bank Imposed Liquidation

It would be recalled that government initially intended to privatise CAMAIR, but things later changed. On January 2006, it announced that bids were open for tenders to select a strategic partner to operate a new airline company that the state was to create to replace CAMAIR.

On February 22, 2006, the then Minister of the Economy and Finance, Polycarpe Abah Abah, disclosed, while addressing members of GICAM in Douala, that government had, after concertating with the World Bank, decided to place CAMAIR on liquidation/privatisation.

This meant that part of the company would be liquidated and another part privatised. The Minister had also stated that government had adopted the policy to first of all restructure the company before privatising it, citing the case of CAMTEL where government invested heavily in 2005 and brought it back to good shape, as a successful experiment.

Then, either by coincidence or design, President Biya had the very next day (February 23, 2006), sacked Thomas Dakayi Kamga as CAMAIR General Manager and appointed a senior tax inspector, Paul Ngamo Hamani, as Provisional Administrator with a six month mandate, renewable.

Ngamo, who before his appointment was the President of the National Technical Commission for the Rehabilitation of Public Companies and Parastatals, was tasked to revamp the sinking CAMAIR, to prepare it for privatisation.

Worth noting is that the presidential text on the CAMAIR liquidation/privatisation which accompanied Ngamo's appointment stated that the company's employees were to be placed under the liquidation section, meaning that the new airlines to be created would have no obligation to take over any of them.

It was, however, stated that when the time comes and the workers part company with CAMAIR, individuals would be free to seek employment at the new airline company.

Failure To Match Practice With Theory

Ngamo failed to march his theoretical knowledge with practice and instead plunged CAMAIR into a state worse than he met it. Things got to a head when the lone plane owned by CAMAIR, the Dja (Boeing 767-300), was seized at the Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris, on March 3, by an American company, Ansett, for debts owed them.

Finance Minister, Lazare Essimi Menye, had to plead with Ansett to accept an agreement for installmental payments before the Dja was released. Then in apparent intrigue, the government ordered that CAMAIR should suspend the Dja from international flights. But President Biya in a decree signed on March 11, fired Ngamo.

Then after the General Assembly meeting of CAMAIR on March 14 in Douala, the Minister of Finance told reporters that the mandate of Bekolo and Partners had been extended for one year as liquidator in charge of Financial Affairs at CAMAIR.

The Minister had disclosed that the liquidator was, among other things, to calculate the dues the workers would get when the company finally folds up. He also promised that a co-liquidator would be appointed to take care of judicial issues. But by May 30 when the workers were dumped, the said co-liquidator was yet to be appointed.

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