Maputo Municipality Covid-19 face mask production stopped and workers claim they were nor paid for a year – Carta

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Maputo Municipality Covid-19 face mask production stopped and workers claim they were nor paid for a year – Carta

7:52 CAT | 05 May 2021

File photo: Modified

On April 22, 2020, Maputo City Council, in partnership with the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency for Africa (TIKA), launched a project to produce coronavirus prevention mask and distribute them to vulnerable citizens.

Also read: Maputo: Project to produce and distribute 2 million masks takes off – photos

To carry out the project, which aimed to produce around two million facial masks, the municipality, led by Eneas Comiche, hired 22 people from various neighbourhoods in the Mozambican capital on a subsidy of 3,750.00 meticais a month.

However, 12 months after the start of the project, none of the mask producers working at the Municipal Training and Employment Orientation Centre in Magoanine ‘C’ has seen any of the money.

The damaged parties told ‘Carta’ that the matter was known to the Municipal Directorate for Social Action, which, however, had done nothing to resolve it. They said that, at the beginning, the mayor gave his blessing to the project, but lately does not seem to know how to get to the location.

The members of the group, aged between 21 and 74 years old, all say that they saw the project as an opportunity to earn some income.

“Since April last year, we have produced 51,000 masks, which have been collected and distributed. After they collected the last batch, in December, they simply abandoned us, and stopped bringing us both material and food,” 39-year-old Elisário Ernesto says.

Nelson Macamo, who is 25 years old, reiterates the sense of abandonment, adding that he never missed work. “Every day, we chose to wake up early and come here, so they knew that we still existed. They abandoned us. We have already sent several letters to the City Council, but they have never been answered. Whenever we contact the Social Action Directorate, they say that our payment process is in the Administrative Court and that we must wait,” Macamo says.

As a matter of fact, the City Council scheduled a meeting with the group for April 21st, but the council team simply failed to turn up.

‘Carta’ contacted the Maputo City Council, in the person of the President of the Municipal Council’s press advisor Mussa Mohamed, but without any solution being offered. First, Mohamed said: “I don’t know if these people should be paid”, but then that he “would try to find out ” and would then “say something”.

However, by the time of going to press, no answer had been received.

By Marta Afonso

Source: Carta de Moçambique