Libreville, April 14, 2023 (AGP) – The Gabonese Trade Union Confederation (COSYGA) is organizing a National Council on April 14 and 15, 2023 under the theme: “The high cost of living in Gabon: issues and challenges”. This meeting brought together all the affiliated members of Libreville and the interior of the country, with a view to seeking solutions with pragmatism, objectivity and responsibility.
More than a hundred unions took part in the National Council of the Gabonese Trade Union Confederation (COSYGA), which comes at a crucial time when the shopping basket has increased sharply and the day after the national conference on the cost of living.
The work and the debates focused on the theme of the high cost of living in Gabon, issues and challenges. This work is led by the associate professors of economics, full professors and heads of the Social Security Chair at the UOB, Gabriel Zomo Yebe and Janvier Ntoutoume.
The event was enhanced by Pr. Médard Mengue Bidzo, Chief of Staff of the Minister of State in charge of Consumption and High Cost of Living, who was unable to attend. The latter focused his speech on the importance of effective and frank collaboration, but concretely through constructive proposals and suggestions from Cosyga which is ” a powerful partner“. Recalling that it shares the will of the highest authorities ” to lead a stubborn fight against the high cost of living and to sustainably support the purchasing power of Gabonese households« .
Pr. Médard Mengue Bidzo urged the participants, in perfect synergy of actions and cohesion with the government, to find solutions for a real improvement in the current gloomy picture. ” Let’s mobilize for the end of the big gap between words and deeds. Let us give way to clairvoyance, to faith, to reason. The general interest recommends it to us “, he hammered.
The participants in this congress.
Opening the work of this national council, the secretary general of the mother of the trade union centers, Philippe Djoula reiterated that Cosyga recognizes the relevance of the measures supposed to relieve the difficulties of Gabonese taken by the government, in particular the new price list, the fight against incidental taxation and the abolition of all levies not provided for by the finance law, created by regulatory texts at the central, decentralized or decentralized level of the State.
According to him, this does not mechanically erase the effects of the rise in prices on the purchasing power of the worker. ” However, it must be noted that despite the battery of measures taken by the Executive, the shopping basket continues to be emptied of its substance due to the incivility and greed of certain traders (importers, freight forwarders, transporters, wholesalers, retailers), more concerned with their profit margins than contributing to the improvement of consumers’ living conditions. An effort of sensitization, persuasion, even coercion of the administration is therefore required for the government towards these uncivil and greedy to meet the challenge of the dear life ” , did he declare.
Philippe Djoula did not fail to indicate that consultation, negotiation, decision and evaluation would help to better identify the issues and meet the multifaceted challenges posed by the improvement of purchasing power and the effective fight against the high cost of living. , in the short, medium and long term.
For this first day, speaker Gabriel Zomo Yebe enlightened trade unionists on the concept and mechanisms of high cost of living in Gabon.
CBO/FSS
