Second Vice Foreign Minister Kang In-sun has met with Cameroon’s Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute in the Central African country and discussed an upcoming leaders’ summit of South Korea and African nations, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Wednesday.

Kang’s courtesy call on Dion Ngute on Tuesday (local time) came during her weeklong two-nation trip as a presidential envoy to the continent this week that also took her to Senegal.

In the meeting, Kang highlighted that the South Korea-Africa summit, set for June 4-5 in Seoul, will serve as a chance for the two countries to significantly boost bilateral cooperation and asked for Cameroon’s support and participation in the gathering.

Kang also expressed expectations that the cooperation with Cameroon will continue to deepen in a wide range of areas, as it has in ICT, health care, agriculture and job training, through robust high-level talks and other exchanges.

Kang separately met with Cameroon’s presidential chief of staff, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, and acting Foreign Minister Oumarou Chinmoun.

In Cameroon, Kang also had a meeting with South Korean officials from the state aid agency, KOICA, and those from other development aid nonprofit organizations.

Source: en.yna

Hundreds of thousands of workers across Cameroon are observing International Labor Day on May 1 by marching against abuses they say include illegal dismissals and failure to pay the $70 monthly minimum wage, even as the cost of living increases.

Trade unions say tens of thousands of trained teachers, doctors and nurses have fled the country in the past year because of unemployment and tough working conditions, with monthly salaries at half the minimum.

Celestin Bama, secretary general of the Confederation of Cameroon Workers Trade Union, or CSTC, addressed workers gathered at the May 20 Boulevard in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde.

Bama said the government of Cameroon has not done anything substantial within the past 30 years to improve the conditions of workers. Thirty years ago, Cameroon imposed a 70 percent salary cut on government workers, Bama said, adding that there is a growing need to increase wages as prices of basic commodities have spiked 40 percent.

Cameroon trade unions say a 20 percent fuel price hike imposed by the government in February without a corresponding salary increase has also made living very difficult.

Anong Jacob, a member of the Cameroon Teachers Trade Union, or CATTU, said some private school owners pay teachers as little as $50 a month.

“What do you expect from a teacher who earns 40,000 or 30,000 francs in a town like Yaounde or Douala or Bamenda, Bafoussam? What quality of shoe or dress would you expect them to put [wear] and come to school? You see the poor teacher with twisted shirts, with twisted shoes and all of that. Sometimes they don’t have money to pay electricity bills. They suffer a lot of humiliation,” Anong said. “I think the government should put some policies [in place] to see that proprietors and proprietresses respect the minimum wage.”

Cameroon’s agreed minimum wage is $70 per month. Hilary Mbuwel, a teacher and social critic, said private employers do not respect the minimum wage because the government does not police private companies.

“Proprietors know that if they do not respect the minimum wage, nobody calls them to account and so, since there is nobody to call them to account, nobody to punish them, they do it with impunity,” Mbuwel said.

The government says there has been a 10 percent pay raise since 2023, but workers say with inflation so high, the raise is negligible. The government says the inflation rate is about 8 percent.

Cameroon Minister of Labor and Social Security Gregoire Owona said the fragile world economy and several armed conflicts that the government has to manage make it impossible for the state and private investors to satisfy the needs of all workers.

Owona said limited financial resources make it difficult for the government of Cameroon to solve the myriad problems affecting workers. He added that Cameroon President Paul Biya has ordered officials to make sure the wages of all government workers are paid regularly and as agreed in their employment contracts, while the possibility of improved workers’ rights, decent working conditions and fair compensation are being examined.

Owona said the Cameroon government has instructed police and the National Insurance Fund to investigate and punish private employers who neither register their staff members to social security schemes nor respect the minimum wage.

The government says respecting agreed wages and providing retirement benefits and disability income to qualified workers and their families will reduce the current massive migration of workers for lucrative jobs elsewhere, especially in Europe and North America.

Cameroon says at least 10,000 trained professionals have fled the central African state within the past year because of unemployment, poor pay or poor working conditions.

Source: VOA

Local and city council mayors in Cameroon have signed a charter which reflects their desire to take birth registration efforts more seriously in all their respective municipalities. The mayors took the resolve at the end of a recent two-day forum in Yaounde which laid bare all facets of problems hindering civil status registration in the country.

The document signed by the mayors also contains proposals on which some action is required by the government in order to improve birth registration figures in the country.

The Yaounde forum – the first of its kind – brought together all the 374 local and city council mayors, heads of secondary civil status registration centers, civil status registration secretaries, civil society actors involved in citizen action, representatives from government ministries, departments and agencies, as well as those of financial and technical partners supporting the government of Cameroon in civil status registration matters.

Speakers during the forum included Decentralisation and Local Development Minister Georges Elanga Obam, UNICEF country representative for Cameroon Nadine Perault and a UNICEF consultant and CRVS expert, Cornelius Williams. They all stressed the importance of birth registration, saying it is the starting point of a human being’s legal existence. They said they hope the forum will provide the necessary impetus for joint action that will prioritize birth registration and make Cameroon an exemplary country in the domain within the central African sub region.

Some proposals contained in the charter, put together during several workshops that characterized the forum, include the need to extend the legal deadline for birth registration beyond the current 90 days from the date of birth of a child, the need to increase financial resources to councils and for government to simplify birth registration requirements and the entire process itself, among other issues.

At the end of the forum, Perault said: “[I’m] inspired by the commitment of Cameroon mayors at the first birth registration forum. Their dedication to improving birth registration systems will help provide children with a strong foundation for a better future.”

She added: “The mayors’ forum on birth registration in Cameroon marks a significant step towards achieving universal birth registration. Let’s amplify our efforts to ensure that no child is left without a legal identity. We have the power to make 2024 the year of birth registration in Cameroon.”

On the commitment taken by the mayors, Elanga Obam remarked: “You have made strong commitments in the charter you just signed. You will be judged by the results achieved through efforts to reduce the seven million Cameroonians without legal identity. History will judge you.”

Source: biometricupdate