Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2011, published 101st ILC session (2012)

Protection of Wages Convention, 1949 (No. 95) - Central African Republic (Ratification: 1960)

Article 12 of the Convention. Regular payment of wages. Further to its previous observation, the Committee notes that the Government’s report contains no information regarding the action taken on the Joint Technical Committee’s recommendations made in its report of November 2006, for the purpose of setting a time frame for repayment of the wage debt, estimated to amount to 70.05 billion CFA francs (approximately US$144 million). The Committee nonetheless understands that a plan for the settlement of domestic arrears was produced in 2008 by the Ministry of Finance and the Budget in the context of current efforts to reduce the public deficit. Under the plan, a timetable has been set for the clearance of wage arrears, which, according to a new estimate, amount to 117 billion CFA francs (approximately US$239 million) and which must be settled in full by 2016. It also understands that the Government has adopted the settlement plan by incorporating it in the 2009 Finance Act. It understands that wage arrears continue to accumulate in the public sector, for example in the postal and savings services, where workers have not been paid for 55 months, and also in the education sector as well as in the defence and security forces. As the Committee emphasized in paragraph 367 of its 2003 General Survey on the protection of wages, a situation in which part of the workforce is systematically denied the fruits of its labour cannot be prolonged and priority action is therefore needed to put an end to such practices. It accordingly asks the Government to indicate whether a wage debt clearance plan has indeed been adopted and, if so, to report on its implementation, giving particulars of the measures taken and indicating whether and how foreign financial assistance granted for the settlement of wage arrears has been used.