Camair-co plagued with more than 70 fictitious contracts

Camair-c0, which is associated with 150 contracts, has over 70 fictitious affecting aircraft and Pilots according to the daily La Nouvelle Expression, in its Friday, August 21, edition

The newspaper revealed that the fake contracts, which were signed under the leadership of Van Elk, Matthijs Boertien and Mbotto Edimo, would be the cause of business failure.

According to the newspaper, at the beginning of the company’s activities, the criteria for recruitment set by the Director General, Van Elk, were problematic. The 2006/293 Decree of September 11, 2006, creating Camair-co, provided in Article 8 stated that, the priority is to first recruit the former employees of Camair before new recruits. Yet the reality is quite different. The team, headed by Mr. Alex Van Elk, instead recruited new Pilots without any experience.

Similarly, La Nouvelle Expression said conditions were fabricated to control local pilots. The few Cameroonian Pilots of former Camair were recruited under pressure from the unions.

Moreover, while the local Pilots were recruited, immigrants were also recruited although they were inexperienced. Therefore, they will receive training to qualify as Boeing Pilots and this is fully supported by the national carrier.

"The case of the Spanish, Eduardo Soria Fairen, is quite indicative. His qualification as a pilot of Boeing 767-300 aircraft will cost about 18 million to the company," the paper said.

Beyond these whimsical recruitments, the wage margin between the two categories (local pilots and immigrants) is also surprising. The contracts of immigrants pilots itself, shows quite a scandalous margin.

La Nouvelle Expression noted that while a Cameroonian Captains under training earned around FCFA 2500 000, immigrants provided by the Park Aviation Limited receive FCFA 5.248.000 million for the training captain. The Flight Commander onboard meanwhile receives FCFA 4. 920. 000. Also, Captain and Co-Pilot receive FCFA 4,592,000 and FCFA 2,296,000 respectively. This gives a FCFA surplus of 618,420.

For nearly three years, the company has paid the surplus for the 14 Pilots recruited immigrants; making a loss of nearly FCFA 333 946 800, during all these years. These contracts, which are unprofessional and costly by the Union of Air Transport Workers, remain a heavy weight on the operation of the company today, the newspaper said.

The newspaper stated that according to information received, the unions do not intend to let go.