Government resumes payment of civil servants

The new government of Guinea-Bissau began paying civil servants their salaries for October on Friday, but warned that it would be some time before they received the full 11 months of arrears they were owed. For the first time ever, government employees were required to collect their money personally from the bank, identifying themselves with their official identity card. This measure was designed to prevent the payment of salaries to thousands of ghost workers on the government payroll. Ghost workers are registered employees who do not exist, but whose wages are collected illegally by other people. The resumption of pay to government employees had been a top priority of President Henrique Rosa. His broad-based civilian administration was sworn in on 28 September with a mandate to guide this small West African country to fresh elections following a military coup which overthrew the erratic administration of former president Kumba Yala on 14 September. Kumba Yala's failure to pay civil servants, teachers and hospital staff had led to a wave of strikes that caused public services to grind to a virtual halt. Government officials said that following the payment of October salaries, the remaining civil service pay arrears would be paid in stages as funds became available. Rosa, who inherited a virtually empty treasury, has been charged with organising parliamentary elections within six months and a presidential election 12 months later to return this former Portuguese colony of 1.3 million people to civilian rule. Agence France Presse quoted Rosa as saying during a visit to Lisbon on Thursday that his government needed immediate aid of US $35 million, mostly to pay salary arrears. Last week Prime Minister Artur Sanha formally announced the reopening of government schools, which had been closed for most of the past two years as a result of a series of strikes by unpaid teachers. The World Bank has provided a US $2.5 million loan to cover their salary arrears.