Cameroon OIC staff placed on technical leave due to Anglophone Crisis

By Christopher Ambe  
       
Eighteen workers of the business unit of Buea-based Cameroon Opportunities Industrialization Center, OIC, have been placed on technical leave. The workers of other sections of the Center  are not yet affected. An official of the

Meoto P. Njie,Chair,OIC Buea

community-based skills training center, who confirmed the news to this reporter on condition of anonymity, said their technical leave takes effect form 5^th September 2018, to 28th February 2019.

The official revealed that Cameroon OIC Buea, which is an affiliate of OIC International with headquarters in Philandelphia, USA, was forced to take such a measure because of the negative effect of the on-going Anglophone crisis on the businesses run by the center.

The source said: “You know with the socio-political crisis [Anglophone Crisis] hitting Buea the tourism sector is greatly affected.  Sales in the Buea OIC Pavilion have dropped very drastically. 

“At times for a whole week nobody comes to lodge in the hotel; very few persons still come to the restaurant so we cannot raise money to pay the workers, electricity bills, taxes etc”

He regretted that sometimes workers went for up to eight months without salaries.

" We felt that instead of keeping the workers there and start accumulating salaries, we sought the advice of the Southwest Regional Delegation of Labor and the Delegate came and tried to explain the situation to the workers.”

He said placing the workers on technical leave does not imply they have been dismissed.

“We are not dismissing them but putting them on technical leave and we will give them a small allowance”, he insisted, adding that once the financial situation improves, they will be called back.

Our source said few persons are retained to take care of the facility so that it may not be burgled.

“We have not closed the Pavilion yet. It is still open to the public because few part-time workers are in place.”

Hon.Meoto Paul Njie, former MP for Buea Urban and former Director of Cabinet at the PM’s Office in Yaounde, who is now Interim Board Chair of Cameroon OIC reportedly, signed the technical leave letters, already served to the affected workers.

Hon. Meoto, a stringent administrator, is at the helm of OIC Buea at a time when the center is facing huge financial difficulties; but observers hope that his stringency would usher in financial transparency and brighter future for the center, which had been rocked by financial scandals in the past. 

Cameroon OIC was established in 1986 as a non-profit, community-based skills training program. It largely depends on Government subvention, which in the past years used to stand at Fcfa 150 million yearly.

The Center offers vocational/technical training in the following fields: Auto-mechanics/Motor Electricity, Building Construction, Hotel catering and management, Information and Communication Technology, Metal Fabrication, Welding and spraying, as  well as Wood Work.

Tens of thousands of ttrainees (both Cameroonian youth and foreigners such as Nigerians) have graduated from the Center with marketable skills.