© REUTERS/Siegfried Modola/File Photo
Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic (illustrative image).
In the CAR, the government has given a big boost to the guaranteed minimum wage, the minimum wage, which is increased by 35% at the start of the year. It goes from 18,850 to 29,000 CFA francs. This is the first revaluation in thirty years. The same goes for the SMAG, the guaranteed minimum agricultural wage which can no longer be less than 1000 CFA francs per day. Rises which only partially satisfy the unions.
Workers in the private sector will have had to wait thirty years before seeing the minimum wage increased.
It must be said that the situation was becoming untenable while prices, themselves, increase regularly. If the boost is notable, trade unionists prefer to speak of “catch-up measure”.
Insufficient, according to Noël Ramadan, deputy secretary general of the Central African Union of Workers, joined by Olivier Rogez of the Economy department. ” To say that this will substantially regulate the lifestyle of workers, no! We are in a period of crisis, the entire population, including workers, lives in precariousness and almost total destitution. Doc, morally it relieves, but in practice, it is difficult to say that with this we solve all the problems. »
Civil servants and state employees are not affected by this increase. The unions are currently negotiating a 40% increase in civil service wages, and the government is due to make proposals by the second half of 2022. But unlike the private sector, the Central African civil service has been entitled to increases in the minimum wage. these last years.