Mozambique: €1.8 million a month timber smuggling in Cabo Delgado 'may be funding rebels'
In file Club of Mozambique / Adriano Maleiane, Minister of Finance and Economy.
All Mozambican state employees received their November wages by Monday, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Adriano Maleiane, assured reporters on Monday.
The wages were paid rather later than normal. Many state workers had become used to receiving their wages in the third week of the month, but in November most were not paid until last Friday, and some not until Monday.
Maleiane had insisted that the delay was not due to any shortage of money, but to a technical snag that was not sorted out until the end of last week.
Speaking at a press conference held to summarise the results of last week’s national meeting on the State Financial Administrative System (SISTAFE), Maleiane declared “Mozambique has been handling its budget in a professional manner. Our current revenues cover the State’s running costs, and we still have around 40 billion meticais (about 727 million US dollars, at current exchange rates) left over”. That sum could be used for debt servicing and to cover some of the capital budget (though much of the latter is still dependent on foreign aid).
The government thus had the money to pay all 311,000 people on its payroll. But Maleiane admitted that sending the money to these workers remained a problem in those parts of the country where there are no banks. 274,000 state employees (88 per cent of the total) now have their wages sent directly to their bank accounts. But the other 37,000 live in places where the nearest bank is a long walk or drive away.
“Our country still does not have banking services everywhere”, said Maleiane. “We are working to use mechanisms such as bank agents, payment by mobile phone and electronic cards to facilitate the lives of people who live a long way from any banks. This is the challenge we face and we are sure we shall succeed”.
The Minister insisted that, despite a wave of price rises in November, many of them resulting from the depreciation of the Mozambican currency, the metical, against the US dollar and the South African rand, the country could still meet the inflation target set by the government for this year.
That target is an inflation rate of 5.6 per cent. Maleiane put inflation up to late November at 3.6 per cent. So, to meet the target, inflation must be no more than two per cent in December.
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