By Elvis Tah
Some Cameroon Tea Estate, CTE, ex-workers, who laid siege at the Buea Divisional Officer, DO's office last month, demanding payments of their dues, have re-embarked on their strike action.
Frustrated former CTE workers
The number of the ex-workers, initially 41, most of them old with starved children, is now reduced to 31 because eight have been paid, while the rest of them were promised to be settled in a fortnight. The promise was never met as the two weeks has extended to a month.
This is a sequel to the CTE Tole saga that witnessed a series of strike actions last year. The embittered former workers have spent close to a week sleeping on the cold veranda of the DO's office and have vowed this time around, never to call off the strike until all of them are paid up.
One of the workers, Bertha Efesoa, told The Post that their dilemma stems from the fact that after the general payments by CTE management in September 2006, some of them were promised to be paid later due to some error on the payment list.
She said they were patient for up to a year until they realised that the CTE management was adamant towards the payment of their entitlements. According to her, they decided on Monday, November 19, to re-start their sit-down strike at the DO's office.
They said their reasons for always targeting the DO's office is because the DO, Bertrand Awunfac, was the one who arbitrated their problem with the management of CTE and supervised the payment.
"After one week of our sit-down strike, the CTE management with the aid of the DO and the Southwest Provincial Delegate for Labour, Raymond Kwa Diboa, paid only eight workers, while Jules Tchachoua, head of the CTE payment official, promised to pay the rest of us after two weeks," said Efesoa.
She said they decided to call off the strike because they were sure
that the CTE management would keep to their words, "but till date, they
have not," said Efesoa.
On whether they have made an attempt to get back to the CTE management
and remind them of their promise before embarking on a strike, Efesoa
said they have not been able to reach Tchachoua because the CTE head
office is located in Douala and not in Limbe as it is claimed.
"The DO had made futile attempts at calling the CTE management but they refused to answer the call," Efesoa said.She added that the Southwest Provincial Delegate of Labour, during the
last strike, helped the CTE management to do the calculations of their
total benefits and gave the figures to the CTE management who promised
to effect the payment.
In spite of efforts by this reporter, neither CTE management nor the DO was available for comment.
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