Pensioners accuse Paul Biya of discrimination

Pensioners accuse government of discrimination and are offended that the President of the Republic, Paul Biya, and all his collaborators ignore their social category which is most vulnerable.

This was revealed in a reaction to a decree raising the salaries of civilian officers and soldiers of the state by five percent instigating pensioners to demand for an upgrade.

The salary increase is one of the accompanying measures taken to stifle the social discontent that has been smouldering since the effective increase in the price of hydrocarbons (fuel and domestic gas), announced on June 30.

This was followed by an increase in the rate of urban transport from 200 CFA francs to 250 CFA francs in the day and 250 CFA francs to 300 CFA francs in the evenings. Transporters also benefit from two orders taken by President Paul Biya, on the tax reduction of 50 per cent.A disproportionate decision, since it makes transporters benefit from almost half of the value against an adjustment of five percent of the salary of officials who cannot cover the effects of this double increase of fuel and the transit of persons and goods.

This suggests an absence of economic strategy at the Presidency, and testifies to the level of presumption with which these decisions have been taken. A threat for a strike action against this decision still stands on July 28.

Civil Society Organizations are also calling for peaceful demonstrations. Societies such as Manidem calls on Cameroonians to wear black every Tuesday and a rebellion at fuel stations by refusing to pay 80 CFA francs per litre of Super, 60 Fcfa on a litre of diesel after consumption and an additional 500 CFA francs for the purchase of domestic gas. Also, collectively accept that all Cameroonians be sent to prisons, a move which would explode the overcrowding nature of our prisons.

Not forgetting the JCR that calls for a boycott of the school year all because the Cameroonian citizens find all these increases unbearable. If active and paid people continue to express their dismay, what about seniors who are mostly more active and have no income?

It is a pity to know that the government authorities of this country who are mostly elderly and retired people, but to whom the favour of a decree allows them to still be in active service and hold high offices in this country, continue to behave as extra-terrestrials who will never have to assume their status as pensioners or elderly.

Retired people lament that pensions allocated to them witnessed an increase only in August 1985 and since then nothing more has been added.

Yet, at the bottom of this scale, there are pensioners who receive a pension amounting to 8,500 CFAF per month and are forced to wait quarterly before going to the counter to withdraw.

It is however this category of people in the society who face hardest the changes of life, especially the impact of the economic fluctuations of the country in such times where the benefits of necessities such as transit rates have been revised upward.

The elderly complain that retirement pensions, allowances, and annuities for the third quarter that some of them receive has never been a benefit from upgrading of the salaries of military officers and civilians at 15 per cent determined in 2008 and the last five per cent decided early this month of July 2014 by the head of State.

Yet they do face the high cost of living especially during the numerous increments.

For this purpose the mutual seniors of Cameroon (Mupac) does not hide its surprise that they are sacrificial victims of this regime, which evident through the enslavement of the elderly.