Transport groups announce an indefinite strike from November 16

A "general strike, peaceful and indefinite" will be observed from November 16 in Cameroon as a call by the nine national land transport unions in the country to demand lower fuel prices and the end of smuggling.

Speaking to the press on Tuesday in Yaounde, the leaders of this movement explained that the steady decline in crude prices on the world market is not reflected on local rates.

For them, this practice is "in contradiction with the official discourse, which indexes the fuel prices at the pump in global price fluctuations."

The organizers of the strike said they fear if they do not act they will be considered by their peers as "conniving with the government."

They said they are "tired of being strangers for more than 50 years after independence" in an industry to which they devote their lives, the national unions of Cameroon's land transport also consider smuggling as "a cancer" beating down the development of the country. They note that the practice has become a source of insecurity for people in this time of great rampant banditry and sometimes deadly attacks by Islamist sect Boko Haram.

The "riots" in late February 2008 which officially recorded 42 people dead across the country, was started due to refusal to increase fuel prices at the pump at the instigation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF ).

The said increase, which should have been initiated according to the "reality of the market" and on which the Government has procrastinated, finally came into force since early July 2014.