From 3-5 May, 2017 Honourable Calixte Nganongo, Minister of Finance, Budget and Public Portfolio held a series of meetings with the trade unionists of CSTC(workers trade Union), CSC(Trade Union of Congo) of the Treasuryandthe Excise departments and ofSYDOC(Customs Trade Union)in the meeting room of his office in Brazzaville.

The meetings were at the initiative of the Minister because he wanted to enquire about the demands of the trade unionists and to shade light not only on the hard times Congo is experiencing, but also on the changes he wants to make in the various bodies under the authority of the Ministry of Finance (particularly the Treasury, the Customs and the Taxation departments). The purpose of the meetings is that of working together with those departments in order to find mechanisms for a better management of those departments under the authority of the Ministry of Finance.

Among the demands raised by the trade unionists are the attribution of the computer fee back to those three fol-l excise departments, the payment of performance bonus to the officers of the Treasury, as is the case with the taxation and customs services; the building of the head offices of the departmental directorates of the Treasury; the payment of the allowance for the transport of the Treasury funds ; the cancellation of the memoranda nº 105, 107 and 109 dated February 17, 2017 appointing customs officers; the withdrawal of officers not being originally from the customs; the training of the officers of the three bodies ; the special status of the Treasury; the building of a modern head office for the general directorate of taxation; the updating of many legal texts governing the three bodies etc.

Honourable Calixte Nganongo replied by saying that the computer fee is now paid to the Treasury. It is now up to each body to send its quotation to the relevant body, provided that it has something to do with computeriza-tion, as the computer is a great tool of transparency and traceability , as mentioned in 2003.

As regard the withdrawal of memoranda, the Minister said that he used his reserve powers . The officers were appointed in a responsible way and would be judged on their performances. As for the building of the head office of the general directorate of taxation and estate (DGID), the member of Government asked the officers to be patient.

As for the texts to be updated, honourable Calixte Nganongo promised that he would set up a committee for that purpose in due course. Deperate times call for desperate measures

 The excise departments are experiencing a very deep crisis. So, the Minister called everybody to find ways of sorting out the problems faced by those departments. A detailed assessment of these departments will be made very soon. A programme of activity will be drafted along with a plan of action.

In fact, "even the most desired changes have their gloom", as the saying goes. The Minister invited the workers to abide by the reforms initiated. Revenues from these departments are the most expected in order to bring more money in for the State. State revenues so far came from oil revenues, doomed due to the decrease in crude oil prices.

As dialogue is a tool for conflict prevention, honourable Calixte Nganongo, a dialogue minded person clearly said that his office was open.

Press department of the Ministry of Finance