Statement by the Minister of the Economy and Finance, Romuald WADAGNI, on the efforts to clear arrears to workers Following the meeting between the Head of State and the heads of the Central and trade union confederations, on Friday October 16, the Minister of the Economy and Finance, Romuald WADAGNI, had a discussion session, as soon as on Saturday October 17, with media professionals. The objective was to re-specify the conclusions of the said meeting. Below are all the explanations of the national treasurer … Journalist: The social partners met the President of the Republic on Friday October 16, 2020. During the session, it appeared that the Government had made great efforts to clear social debts which it inherited from the previous regime. What exactly is it? Romuald WADAGNI: Thank you for the opportunity you have given us to come back to the point of the meeting between the social partners and the President of the Republic. Much has been done regarding state debts to workers, whether active workers or state pensioners. The idea of the exchanges that the Head of State had with the trade union centers is to explain all the efforts made by all the citizens to make it possible to pay part of these debts. We took stock of the debt situation in 2016. During the visit of Mrs. Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2017 in Cotonou, a report was presented which presented all the debts of the State vis-à-vis the different categories of the population. , especially workers. This report presented for workers under wage recalls, an amount of 93.8 billion. This amount corresponds to the non-payment of the effect of category shifts. The categorical slippage can come from two things: the advancement or the steps that one acquires every two years but also the progression of wages linked to promotions. I would like to remind you that under the salary reminders, until our arrival, the fact that it was necessary for the workers to travel to the Public Service, to do several administrative formalities so that the salary increases were recorded, all these cumbersome and lengthy administrative arrangements partly justify these debts which have been accumulated for decades. The instructions that the Head of State gave upon our arrival is to reflect and put in place a mechanism so that these debts no longer accumulate. Since our arrival, we have set up a device where the levels of workers are noted mechanically and automatically in the payroll management system, without necessarily waiting for the acts to be taken and for it to go around the ministries, Function Public and Finance… This reform has been in effect since 2017 and allows the automatic recognition of the effect of advancements. That said, since April 2016, we have had old acts which were being processed and which came to the end of the process. The typical example is a teacher who benefited in 2014 from a promotion for which the acts were being processed when we arrived and it is in 2018 that the process is completed. And so in 2018, we were able to calculate his rights related to an advancement that should have been noted in 2014. I give this example to show that we have on the one hand the debts which were noted, audited and reviewed on April 6, 2016, which were 93.8 billion but beyond that, there are acquired rights for workers for which the administrative processes, which are generally very long, continued and were finalized after April 2016 and which generated additional fees to be paid. These rights, even though they were recorded as debts due to workers after April 2016, mainly relate to rights acquired over previous periods. This is why the Head of State, when we took stock of the situation, instructed us to find by all means the necessary resources, to zero all of these debts which are born vis-à-vis the workers. He does not want there to be a single debt to the workers. It is in execution of these instructions that the point was also made for all these salary reminders which have been pending since then and which have been added to the 93.8 billion and which are rising, for the complement of debts finalized since 2016 at 15.6 billion. These mainly concern rights acquired over the periods before 2016. From 2016, I told you about the important reform that allows workers to no longer do administrative hassles in order to see these advancements. I also want to clarify what the Head of State said, namely that we are going to make constant efforts, month after month, to lower the stock of debts. Over the period from April 2016 to date, we have thus already been able to liquidate 53 billion out of the 93.8 billion in debts that were in the accounts as of 6 April 2016. As a result, under finalized debts which were pending in the accounts of the public accounts on April 6, 2016, we had 93.8 billion, we have over the four and a half years, made efforts to liquidate 53 billion and there are 40.8 billion left. Every month, a provision of 1 billion FCFA is made to settle old debts. The Head of State insists that the room for maneuver that is released be devoted to the settlement of workers’ debts. The services of the Ministry of the Economy and Finance are hard at work, they will be working all weekend to ensure that the payrolls for the month of October which were already prepared and will be available from next week. , that each one notes on his payslip, the payment of his reminders which constitute the major part of the debts. Beyond the salary reminders, there were a certain number of administrative measures, whether they were orders or decrees that were taken in the time before us, over several years and which created rights never liquidated to workers, the Chief of the State had asked us to take stock. The latter is part of the audit that was carried out at the request of the IMF in 2016. Several categories of benefits and rights acquired by workers were liquidated over time. Compared to the premium for health workers, before us, the practice in the past in the event of a strike movement is to obtain an order or a decree that creates rights to meet the demands of unions. But on the other hand, the State not having the means to liquidate these rights, the workers returned to work with this decree or this decree in hand and waited for another opportunity to come back to demand their legitimately acquired rights. The Head of State asked to take stock and this 6 billion bonus was paid, including 3 billion in 2017 and 3 billion in 2018. Still in the field of health, the risk premium which had been there for several years was paid for 1.4 billion. Beyond everything, I think that the most important thing is to understand the direction in which the Head of State inscribes the actions of the government as regards relations with the workers. Two simple principles: the first is that before demanding performance from workers, the State must honor its commitments, including the payment of debts. The State is a continuity and we took stock and we make the efforts every month to gradually liquidate the debts. The second principle is that it is not necessary to enter into arm wrestling or complex discussions to achieve satisfaction of workers’ demands. When we have transparent governance or when we expose what we have as resources and in what we use them, when we maintain a constructive dialogue with the central unions, we achieve miracles. These are the two simple principles that have governed what the government does so far Apart from active workers, what are the specific measures taken for retirees? This desire to empty workers’ debts is also aimed at pensioners. When I spoke of active workers, I spoke to you about what we have done in terms of financial efforts to satisfy the debts that were there. I also told you about reforms to ensure that debts do not accumulate and to ensure that workers have less hassle to enjoy their rights. This same logic was applied to pensioners. As of April 6, 2016, there was a debt owed to pensioners of $ 48.9 billion. We then questioned the whole long and difficult process to be able to benefit from these pensions and various reforms were also carried out in order to no longer accumulate debts vis-à-vis pensioners but to make their lives easier. The latest reform to date is the one the government took a few weeks ago and which aims to ensure that pensioners who are going to retire do not have an income break. He is going to retire on October 1 and on October 30 he has his first pension. We have worked to make this a reality from October. Pensioners in this month of October will receive their first pension as of this month. You cannot serve a state for thirty years, retire and start doing the offices of all the administrations to receive your pension. It is on the strength of this principle that we worked on the reform which was validated in the Council of Ministers. Before that, there were several measures that were taken, in particular the deconcentration of the various structures, whether of the Civil Service or of Finance, which allows pensioners no longer to have to leave Parakou for Cotonou to make changes in their files. The dematerialization and deconcentration of our services in all the twelve departments was already a form of progress. Before that, we completely modernized access to pensions and passbook services at the Ministry of Finance with a waiting room and facilities for retirees in the idea that when you have really served your State for so long and that we are retired, the state must be there for us in the event of difficulties. The total amount due to pensioners on April 6, 2016 was therefore 48.9 billion. These accumulated amounts were due to two things. The first is the decree of 2011 which revalued the pension to 1.25% and the red tape. With this decree, someone who had 100,000 FCFA in pension would benefit from the application of this decree now of 125,000 FCFA. The non-application of this decree and the red tape had contributed to building up on this stock of 48.9 billion debt, an additional resource linked to the coming into effect of this decree of approximately 2.5 billion. Efforts made every month to pay off these debts have so far emptied about $ 27 billion. There remains a balance of about 22 billion for which, in the same way as for the active workers, we make efforts every month to gradually settle these debts. We have communicated these details to the central unions so that they can return to the base and inform the workers. The efforts are continued month after month and each time there is additional leeway, there will be additional leaps to empty these debts. In total, the amount owed to workers as of April 6, 2016, was 173 billion, including a little over 93 billion for payroll reminders. The thinking of the government is how to do so that in 5 years, there is no more debt and empty all 173 billion. I think that if the economic situation had not worsened last year with the closure of the borders with Nigeria and then with the Covid, given the efforts we are making in a difficult context, the government would have kept this bet. What is being done is almost a miracle that in such difficult times, the government is keen to honor its commitments to workers in collaboration, dialogue and transparent governance.