The regional director for West Africa at Engen promised that there would be a salary review for the employees of Engen GB during a meeting in December 2008.However the only thing Mr Bastou Badarou did was to give the employees a salary increase.
One of the main issues is the fact that nobody knows what the criteria for the increase are. Some received 20,000fcfa, others more than 100,000fcfa increase. Many people now think that Mr Badarou did that in order to reward some employee who closed their eyes on some of his little arrangements.
Engen GB is one of the oil company in Guinea Bissau pays the lowest salaries.But that is not an issue for Mr Bastou Badarou as to him the employees are almost like slaves.
Threats, arbitrary punishments, blackmail and corruption are part of Engen GB culture now. All the employees suffer in silence because they are afraid and they have already seen what the price of asking questions is. They do not know what their rights within the company are (no access to the HR policies…).What Mr Badarou and mr Abache say goes.The employees feel left out because they have the impression that nobody cares as otherwise all those things would not have happened
