Government suspends mass retirement of civil servants

Niger’s trade unions have reacted to a government decision to freeze the planned dismissal of some 2,000 public servants by suspending a two-day strike that was to have begun on Wednesday, a media source told IRIN. The strike had been aimed at supporting public servants’ demands for the payment of eight months’ salary owed to them and protesting against the dismissals. Under a reform programme supported by the World Bank, Niger’s previous government issued an ordinance in December that provided for the dismissal of public servants who had reached the age of 50 or had 30 years of service. Information Minister Mahamadou Dandah told IRIN on Wednesday that the ordinance was suspended because measures that were to have accompanied it could not be taken following the suspension of aid to Niger. Aid was frozen in reaction to the coup on 9 April of this year that brought the Conseil national de Reconciliation (CNR) to power. Listing some of the accompanying measures, Dandah said public servants were owed eight months’ salary and the plan was that at least those due for retirement would receive their back pay and gratuities, while some would be helped to go into business. The suspension of the ordinance was discussed at talks between the CNR and union representatives, said Dandah, who is a member of an inter-ministerial team that has been holding consultations with the CNR’s “partners”. These include civil society and interest groups and international bodies such as the World Bank. Dandah stressed that the ordinance had been suspended but not scrapped since “all parties agree that reforms cannot be circumvented but need to agree on the modalities of implementing them”.