CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
by Sylvestre Tetchiada, Cameroon, Jan. 1999
THEME = SOCIAL CONDIT.
It's no easy matter for retired workers in the public sector
to get their retirement allowance
Unbelievable! They've given their "all" during their working lives. They've saved up for their retirement years. And what happens? It's during these very retirement years that a nightmare existence takes place. To try and get their money, the unfortunate former government employees have to follow a well- trodden path from the Finance Ministry to the Pension Fund Office to try and get what's rightfully theirs. And what happens? At the Ministry they're kicked out. And when they try their luck at the Pension Fund Office, they're told there's nothing for them. Too true, because certain officials working with the Pension Fund have been pocketing the workers' life savings. Yes. To try and get one's due is no easy matter.
It's a staggering picture, yet one that's very common! Every day, these elderly men have to traipse from one office to the other in the hot dry dusty sun of the dry season, or they have to wander aimlessly from one office to another to ensure their files are, at the very least, "being considered" - in the vain hope that one day they'll get what is their due. In Yaounde, they're often to be found asleep on the doorsteps of these offices, or in the courtyard of the Finance Ministry, worn out from travelling miles to reach the capital from their far off villages. Only to be told in the morning: "Come back next month", or "We've got no money", or "Go to the office next door". All of which emphasises the depths so many retired Cameroonians have sunk to, when they've literally to beg for their livelihoods like so many poor beggars in the streets.
It's a very hard reality for the over sixties who've saved up and selflessly worked hard all their lives with such devotion and patriotism. They thought that in becoming civil servants they'd be assured of a happy retirement. They saved up and entrusted their money to the Pension Funds, or had a sum deducted from their salaries each month towards their pension. And now, years later, the Fund has no money to give, and the Finance Ministry is likewise loaded with difficulties.
So the dream of a happy retirement has turned into a nightmare. In April 1996, television viewers were treated to the spectacle of an old man on the brink of despair. He was waving X-Rays of his cancerous lungs in front of the television cameras. He'd come into town that day, as was his custom, to claim his pension. As usual, the old man and his fellow pensioners didn't have much luck. They hung about and eventually were driven off the premises with blows. Brutalised and humiliated, they went back home without having received a penny. A few days after, the same old man died in his village from his cancer that he was'nt able to have treated because he didn't have the money, although he was supposed to have been covered for such eventualities by his retirement pension and payments made for medical insurance.
Away from the glare of the television cameras, there are many more like him who suffer and die from the same situation. All indications are that there are quite a number of Cameroonians who die prematurely from sheer need, simply because they are retired and can't get hold of what is rightfully theirs. Yet, so little is said about it!
END
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