Watch: Governor Taipo dismayed at state of Beira bus company

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Watch: Governor Taipo dismayed at state of Beira bus company

5:44 CAT | 29 Jun 2017

Miranar (Screen grab)

The governor of the central Mozambican province of Sofala, Helena Taipo, on Wednesday made a surprise visit to the headquarters of the Beira bus company (TPB), to check on complaints sent to her by TPB workers.

According to a report on the independent television station STV, the workers complained of mistreatment by the management, wage arrears, mismanagement, and defective communication between the workers and the commission that is currently running the company.

Taipo met with workers and managers of TPB and found that the workers’ complaints were well grounded. She demanded to look at the company wage sheets, and found enormous discrepancies. Some workers were being paid about 2,000 meticais (about 34 US dollars) a month, but others received 90,000 meticais a month.

For a full-time worker a monthly wage of 2,000 meticais would be illegal, since it is well below the statutory minimum wage.

The company is grossly overmanned. It employs more than 100 people, but only has five operational buses – so there are more than 20 workers per bus.

The company only manages to collect 70,000 meticais a day in fares, which is not enough to cover its running costs. One of the workers, Joao Tembo, told Taipo that the situation is so critical that TPB can no longer even print its own tickets. “We’re using tickets from past years, and we just put a stamp on the back”, said Tembo.

He accused the company’s managers of making no investment in maintenance. When the management commission took office, TPB had 16 buses on the roads, but the number is now down to five.

Taipo found the enormous differential in wages between the highest and lowest paid very strange “in a public company which is producing very little”.

She recalled that, shortly after its appointment, the management commission had come to her office “and guaranteed it would work to improve the management of the company. Unfortunately, today we are handling problems and with a management that is clearly harmful”.

“I shall work with the TPB managers”, she promised, “and if we conform that they are the ones mainly responsible for the difficulties and problems facing the company, we shall take measures”.