Text of report by Gabon-based pan-African radio broadcaster Africa No 1 on 1 August Following the strike by its staff, Africa No 1 is unable to broadcast its programmes.Listeners to the African radio, accept our sincere apologies. The staff of Africa No 1 decided to go on strike on 31 July 2008 at 1200 [local time] to press for the payment of legal rights in line with the ongoing restructuring process. [Africa No 1 is a prominent broadcaster in Francophone Africa]
For that reason, the Gabonese state which pledged to pay the severance allowance, released the sum of 6bn CFA francs [about 15m dollars], a sum of money which is in agreement with the calculations made by the Africa No1 accounts department and sent to the privatization committee.
Despite the discussions that the representatives of the staff held with the privatization committee, the latter ignored the consensus and acted unilaterally. Thus a worker with 10 years’ service in the organization find himself getting 1.5m CFA francs [3,638 dollars] in all as the rights paid when he finds himself unemployed.
It is this injustice that we are denouncing. This disorderliness which lays bare corruption that we are finding within the privatization committee. The staff are also soliciting the intervention of the head of state, Omar Bongo Ondimba, to find an immediate and concrete solution and an end to be put to this trickery.
(Source: Africa No 1 Radio, Libreville, in French 1115 gmt 1 Aug 08 via BBC Monitoring)
(Source: R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)