According to the Massip, the Movement for Agents in Support of an Effective Ivorian Health System, this Covid bonus, which was supposed to have been released in February for an amount of 3 billion CFA francs by the Ministry of Health, was only partially paid to 2,000 contract workers, while 8,000 other agents have still received nothing. "In the payment of this bonus, there were health agents omitted, including health contract workers," points out the secretary general of the Massip, Valentin Mangni Koulai. "To this day, all contract agents in service in the CHUs have not received 5 francs of this bonus. Those who had the chance to receive something, instead of receiving at least five months of bonus, only received two months of bonus. Where did this money go? We are calling for an audit because this is the country's money. And so, this money was disbursed. There needs to be an audit so that we can determine responsibility regarding the management of this bonus."

Denials from the Ministry of Health

But according to the director of Communications for the Ivorian Ministry of Health, the bonuses were indeed paid to most agents, and the delays are simply due to standard verifications conducted in consultation with unions. "The Ministry of Health is managing the matter in perfect collaboration with unions and associations of civil servants and contract agents of the Ivorian health system," explains Paul Allé. "And yet, I have already noted that since the beginning of the crisis, on instruction from the head of state, civil servants regularly receive their Covid-19 bonus. So, the civil servants who had not received bonuses are those who were awaiting their first payment authorization, that is to say those who were newly assigned and who were not in the payroll files. In addition to this the contract workers. After consulting the files in consultation with the unions, we identified 8,954 contract agents. That is why it took a bit longer. And I can tell you today that among them we have paid 6,913, who received their four months and the money has been transferred to the Treasury. So, they will receive it as it comes."