DR Congo transport workers on strike

Workers from the Democratic Republic of Congo's national transport office have ended a strike staged to oust two top bosses they accuse of mismanagement, a labour leader said Friday.

"We've suspended the strike to pursue negotiations with the government," trade union official Etienne Tadila told AFP. Talks began in earnest on Tuesday, about a week after the strike started.

On Tuesday, staff announced said they wanted the departure of Delegate General Administrator Claude Pecune-Ponson, a Frenchman, and the chairman of the board, a Congolese, Guillaume Kahasha.

"We accuse Mr Pecune-Ponson of lack of management and Mr Kahasha of stepping beyond his role on the board to interfere in daily management," said Tadila, who helped launch the strike.

Bosses and union leaders met on Tuesday with Prime Minister Adolphe Muzito, who promised a wage rise for company staff to compensate for the depreciation of the Congolese franc against the dollar.

According to Tadila, in January 2008, the DR Congo government awarded a Spanish firm, Progosa, a two-year contract worth 10 million dollars (7.5 million euros) to draw up a scheme to renovate the central African country's rail and river transport.

He claimed, however, that there had been "no action plan, no port or rail investment," and that Progosa's assessment and recovery plan were "invisible" for all that money changed hands.

Pecune-Ponson was made responsible, with a technical director, for managing the overhaul of facilities that have long run to ruin in the vast and latterly war-torn former Belgian colony.

Tadila said that the prime minister had urged the strikers to clarify and substantiate their allegations against their managers, but he said that "for us, their departure is not negotiable."

The unions also denounced a sub-contracting labour scheme Pecune-Ponson signed with a private company, New Fort Services, for work at Matadi, the DR Congo's main port on the Atlantic, on the grounds it was too expensive.

According to Tadila, the prime minister ordered the resiliation of this contract.

Medard Nsibma, who runs Matadi port, said during the strike that a "minimum service" was operational. "We're unloading the boats at the docks so that we can take on the ones that are waiting at anchor," he said.