Government releases funds to pay long overdue pensions

The Chad government has freed up about 5.5 billion CFA francs (US $10.3 million) for government workers' pensions that have gone unpaid for up to two years, meeting a top demand of the country’s largest union as it moved into the fourth week of a nationwide strike. Prime Minister Pascal Yoadimnadji met with retired civil servants on Monday and told them the government was releasing funds to pay back pensions from 2004 and 2005. “The situation of retirees is a constant concern for [President Idriss Deby],” Yoadimnadji said in a government statement. In the past few weeks retirees as well as widows of government workers have staged demonstrations in the Chad capital, N’djamena, protesting non-payment of retirement funds. Chadian civil servants have been on strike since 9 January over pensions, salaries and other demands. “We made it clear that these aged people are very fragile and not to pay their pensions would be a serious misstep on the part of the government,” said Michel Barka, president of Chad’s largest labour union, UST. He said the payment of pension dues would be a huge step forward. Union sources say the government paid no pensions at all in 2005 and only portions in the two previous years. “For us this is a very significant step,” Barka told IRIN by phone from N’djamena. “I would say this represents the most important part of all our grievances.” Jean-Baptiste Laokole, a retired civil servant and head of a group representing retired government workers and widows and orphans, said, “This decision is a good thing.” But, he added, “What we regret is that aged people have to come out into the streets and holler and protest in order for the government to pay them." Landlocked, impoverished Chad is facing a particularly thorny period as a rebel movement hovers in the volatile east of the country and government officials try to iron out a dispute with the World Bank which recently halted all loans to the country and froze its oil escrow account. Union members are scheduled to meet on Wednesday and decide whether to continue their strike and whether to hold a peaceful march planned for Thursday, UST’s Barka said. He said he is holding out to see how the government will proceed and whether the pension announcement marks a step toward meeting all civil servants’ demands, which include up to four months in unpaid salaries and a five-percent raise Barka said Deby promised in 2004. “We have been patient up to now and we are waiting to see.”