Mozambican public sector wage bill to rise 3% in 2026 to €2.839 billion

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Mozambican public sector wage bill to rise 3% in 2026 to €2.839 billion

3:46 CAT | 17 Oct 2025

File photo: Lusa

The Mozambican state’s expenditure on salaries is expected to hit a new record in 2026, rising 3% compared with the forecast for 2025, reaching 211.8 billion meticais (€2.839 billion), according to data from the budget proposal.

According to supporting documents for the 2026 Economic and Social Plan and State Budget (PESOE), which Lusa had access to today and which will be submitted to parliament for analysis in the coming days, the salaries and remuneration category represents the equivalent of 12.8% of the estimated gross domestic product (GDP) for next year.

This value results “essentially from the forecast of new admissions to the sectors of Education, Health, Agriculture and Justice Administration Bodies”, the document reads.

In 2024, salaries and remuneration amounted to 202,858 million meticais (€2.720 billion), equivalent to 14% of GDP, and for this year the government has budgeted 205,550 million meticais (€2.756 billion) for the same category, equivalent to 13.6% of GDP.

The Mozambican Ministry of Finance announced on 9 October that it had “gradually” suspended 18,899 public servants in recent months as they failed the biometric proof-of-life, which has become mandatory and is conducted electronically.

In a statement sent to Lusa, the Ministry of Finance said it has been “implementing innovative measures to improve and ensure efficiency in the management of state human resources”, namely the new National Electronic System for State Human Resource Management (e-SNGRHE).

It stated that this system ensures “control of the lifecycle of State employees and agents,” from admission to “disengagement from the State apparatus”.

One of its measures involves the “mandatory annual completion of the biometric proof-of-life in the month of each employee’s or agent’s birthday”, through “facial image capture and collection of facial and fingerprint biometric data, which are automatically validated”.

It involves a mobile application called BioPV, which “allows the employee or State agent to perform the proof-of-life from their mobile phone anywhere in the world, provided they have internet access for facial image capture”.

Thus, for any public servant “who does not complete the proof-of-life in the month of their birthday, the system automatically removes them from the payroll the following month, suspending payment” until it is completed, adding that by the end of the corresponding financial year, “definitive inactivation” is carried out in the system.

“Regarding the 18,899 employees, it is clarified that they were gradually suspended from the payroll as they failed to complete the proof-of-life obligation according to their birthday month, and consequently do not represent any financial burden on the State or undue payments due to failure to complete the proof-of-life,” the statement added.

The new e-SNGRHE electronic management system, the ministry states, “ensures that only active and duly identified employees receive remuneration, eliminating the possibility of paying salaries to non-existent employees”.

Source: Lusa