University lecturers end strike over unpaid overtime

Striking lecturers at the University of Bangui agreed to return to work on Tuesday after the government said it would pay overtime from a 250-million-franc CFA (US $465,004) French grant. "This unfortunate incident would not have occurred if the government did not keep half of our money," Marcel Kembe, the acting head of the university's Geography Department, said in Bangui, the nation's capital. The lecturers said government agreed to pay the remaining 134 million francs ($249,242) later on Tuesday. Although the strike is over, classes did not resume on Tuesday. The lecturers began their action on Monday because, they said, the government had withheld some of their money. They decided on Friday to stop work when the government paid only 116 million francs ($215,762) of the money France provided on 1 July to cover overtime dues for just over 100 lecturers. Lecturers are required to teach 32 hours per week but are often asked to work longer. The government said the full overtime payment was delayed because of a lack of documentation. "The payroll was not produced on time but everything is OK now, all the money has been paid," a senior official at the Ministry for the Economy and Finance said on condition of anonymity. However, the lecturers said even if the government made good this payment, they would still strike to recover their outstanding regular wages. Overtime arrears are among an array of problems all civil servants face. All have accumulated at least 40 months of regular salary pack pay that successive governments have failed to settle. CAR has been facing an acute financial crunch for years. This has led to street demonstrations and, at times, threatened a total breakdown in law and order. The government has received occasional cash injections from China and France to pay salaries. However, this has not solved the problem. The recently-elected president of the CAR, François Bozizé, is in France to discuss this with French officials. Officials at the CAR Ministry for the Economy and Finance have described the trip, so far, as positive because it has yielded a four-million-euro ($4.9 million) grant from Paris. Ministry officials said the money would mostly likely be used to pay one month’s salary arrears to all civil servants.