After AMEs and local authorities : The housewife's basket is waiting

Good news for Aspiring Teachers (AME), the government has finally decided to grant them 12 month of salary per year. said Edmé Codjo before adding "This is why we have focused the work on the coordination, the State will now grant them health insurance, maternity leave and take care of their children's schooling.

The announcement which was made at the end of the Council of Ministers on Monday 18 mars 2024 was welcomed with satisfaction by those concerned. For the majority, qualified teachers, they were deployed on the ground with a precarious status. Not only do they perceive 11 month's salary but also and above all, nothing is done for their enrollment in social security. So concretely, they are hardly treated better than day laborers, without retirement prospects.

Long before these teachers, these are the local authority agents who have seen their professional situation improved by the government. The 13 mars, indeed, the executive took a circular note revaluing the salary index and establishing additional salaries for the benefit of agents of decentralized local authorities.

Following his re-election as head of state in 2021, President Talon had promised that his last mandate would be a social mandate, hence the measures just cited. If the latter constitute a laudable step forward, it remains, however, that the social work is very large. Throughout the last eight years, the purchasing power of the Beninese has been seriously eroded. In the name of street sanitation, thousands of economic actors were chased away and their infrastructure destroyed. At the same time, public and even private companies have been closed with all the consequences that this entails, namely fathers and mothers deprived of their sources of income.

In rural areas where the majority of Beninese live, the situation is not much better. The prices of the main annuity products, notably cashew and soya experienced significant falls, the government having taken measures to prevent the export of these products. All this is happening in an environment where the prices of consumer products have seen significant increases due in part to increased taxes..

If AMEs and local authority agents rub their hands, the observation is that the benefits they have just obtained will quickly be eroded by the high cost of living. Car, as long as nothing is done to bring down the cost of consumer products, improving the conditions of certain workers may not yield the expected results. In fact, it is a battery of measures that the government must take to impact all Beninese people.

Pierre MATCHOUDO