Ivory Coast says striking teachers' salaries can rise

Abidjan (AFP) - Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara used the May 1 Labour Day holiday Friday to announce that civil servants' salaries can finally increase after more than two decades.

His announcement comes at a time when the west African nation's schools are paralysed by a teachers' strike -- they will be among the beneficiaries of the new move.

"The salaries of all civil servants will be unfrozen from today," Ouattara told several hundred people at a ceremony to mark May 1.

Civil servants' pay has been frozen in Ivory Coast since the mid-1980s.

"Promotions can now take place every two years," Ouattara said. "That means that civil servants' salaries will rise every two years."

The measure will affect 113,000 workers -- 92,000 teachers and 15,000 health workers -- and will cost the state 77.6 billion CFA francs, equivalent to around 120 million euros or $134.5 million.

State-run schools have been closed since Monday by a teachers' strike over deductions from their salaries for April following a strike in March in which they called for salaries to be allowed to increase -- the measure announced on Friday.

"To appease the situation, and in an exceptional move, I will tell the government to pay back the deductions," Ouattara said.

The president faces an election in October in an economically important country for Africa that experienced more than a decade of instability until Ouattara took power in 2011.

More than 3,000 people died in post-election violence in 2010 and 2011 after former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede defeat to Ouattara.