By Chris Mbunwe
As part of austerity measures to keep the Northwest Development Authority, MIDENO, alive, its Board members have resolved to slash salaries of workers from top to bottom.
This was one of the several measures that were arrived at during a recent Board of Directors meeting held at the conference room of MIDENO.A Board member, who opted to remain anonymous, told The Post, that after eight hours of reflecting, it was resolved that instead of retrenching workers, it would be good to slash salaries by almost half and abolish some allowances such as housing allowances.
"There is no use accumulating allowances that will never be paid and maintaining a staff on a salary of, for example, FCFA 1,5 million, when if reduced to FCFA 800,000 the corporation can conveniently pay."
So, from hence, a worker who used to earn FCFA 600,000 a month will receive FCFA 300,000. Government subvention comes in bits and not all allowances are paid at a go. Given the fact that project activities and running cost must be maintained, the workers are bound to sacrifice and for MIDENO to survive up to when the economy will improve," our source noted.
Apart from salary cuts, the organigramme of MIDENO has been reorganised with few Directors maintained and most senior workers who were in high sounding positions reduced to mere chiefs of bureaus or less.
The 2009 financial year budget that was voted stands at FCFA 1,155 billion witnessing a slight increase from that of last year.The workers of MIDENO are reported to have received this news with mixed feelings. While some expressed the hope to see salaries paid regularly now that a sizable chunk has been cut, others are mourning silently.
Welcoming Northwest Governor, Abakar Ahamat, who doubles as MIDENO Board Chairman, to the meeting, the Director General of MIDENO, John B. Ndeh, thanked the Governor for his concern to see MIDENO survive in its mission of alleviating poverty.
While presiding over the meeting, Governor Ahamat said, despite the teething problems, MIDENO has been able to achieve much with too little.It would be recalled that when the Grassfield Project known as GP-DERUDEP went operational, the role of MIDENO changed. This role was mounting, implementing and supervising projects in the Northwest but, today MIDENO only mounts and supervise projects for example GP-DERUDEP.
With this new role; the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development recommended that a bigger structure of MIDENO be put in place to meet up with the new dispensation. For example, some Divisions like Menchum have MIRUDED which is supervised by MIDENO in the hope that MIDENO's bigger project would be put in place with funds coming from the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative.Nothing happened.
This explains why MIDENO, for he past five years, has not been receiving the required subventions from government. This led to accrued salaries, non-payment of CNPS dues and difficulties in realising planned project activities.
Faced with this situation, MIDENO workers suggested to management to solve the salary problem by taking MIDENO to where it used to be before the new role came.This required taking away some benefits of those appointed to fill the new structure. That is what the last board meeting did.
The board took the austerity measures in the belief that MIDENO will be able to pay its staff and carry out the needed development for the Northwest. Apart from austerity measures, the board examined the 2006/2007 management accounts.
While expressing the hope to see the government realised the FCFA 1,155 billion budget, the board pleaded with MIDENO to continue to make judicious use of the little funds to carryout development projects.

The only development in MIDENO is J.B Ndeh's girth. What is MIDENO actually for, I beg to ask sincerely? Nice building on the Commercial Avenue though.
Posted by: Danny Boy | Friday, 10 October 2008 at 04:17 PM
MIDENO, SOWEDA etc. should be shut down and put these corrupt ministers to the task of five year developent plan so that Cameroon could be developed from North to Southand from East to West. Are there roads in the Northwest? where Mideno and what does MIDENO means in English to a Northwesterner.
Posted by: Delors | Saturday, 11 October 2008 at 10:25 PM