Frelimo lambasts ‘incitement to stop the country’, opposition calls for resignations over ‘social tsunami’ – Mozambique| TSU

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Frelimo lambasts ‘incitement to stop the country’, opposition calls for resignations over ‘social tsunami’ – Mozambique| TSU

12:17 CAT | 11 Nov 2022

Image: Lusa

Frelimo, the ruling party in Mozambique, on Wednesday accused the parliamentary opposition of “inciting the country to shutdown”, while Renamo described the government as “incompetent” and called for the executive to resign.

The Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the country’s main opposition party, and the Mozambican Democratic Movement (MDM), the third-largest parliamentary party, exchanged accusations during the urgent parliamentary debate on the “risks of paralysis of the public service”, held on Wednesday.

“What we are seeing [from the opposition] is an incitement to strike to stop the country,” said Sérgio Pantie, head of the Frelimo bench.

Pantie accused Renamo and MDM of wanting to immobilise the country, inciting civil service workers to go on strike over the problems encountered in the implementation of the new Single Salary Table (TSU).

“The government has admitted that there are inconsistencies [in the TSU], which, with courage and didactics, are being corrected,” the head of the Frelimo bench said.

Despite the opposition’s instigation to strike, the civil service professional associations and orders would show their patriotic sense and commitment, preventing the public service from being paralyzed, he added.

In turn, the Renamo bench demanded the resignations of ministers of Economy and Finance, Max Tonela, and State Administration and Civil Service, Ana Comoane, for failures in the implementation of the TSU, accusing the executive of incompetence.

“Mozambicans demand that those responsible for this social ‘tsunami’ be immediately fired or themselves resign,” said deputy and Renamo spokesman José Manteigas.

The failures in the implementation of the new civil service remuneration matrix are creating a general dissatisfaction in the state apparatus and have aggravated the lack of trust in the government, Manteigas said.

For its part, the MDM parliamentary bench noted that the country is witnessing a “silent strike with unforeseeable consequences” among state employees, as a result of degradation of salary status.

“The implementation of the TSU is resulting in the withdrawal of acquired rights from various professional classes in the public service, and this is unacceptable,” MDM deputy and spokesman Fernando Bismarque said.

The Mozambican Minister of Economy and Finance said in parliament on Wednesday that the cases of net salary reduction in the civil service are the result of the tax burden applied to salaries paid under the new TSU.

“Given the increase in the amount of the base salary resulting from the implementation of the reform, taking into account the combined effect of the existence of a progressive tax regime and the deductions for retirement, we have seen some situations of reduction in the net salary,” he admitted.

These cases, he continued, particularly affected professionals in the special regime careers, such as doctors, magistrates, and lecturers and teachers in the area of research.

The urgent parliamentary debate on the “risks of paralysis of the public service” took place last Wednesday in a context in which several professional classes of the public service are contesting the TSU on the grounds of framing errors, elimination of subsidies and salary reductions.

Source: Lusa