Maputo: Residents in Inhagóia B protest against exclusion from Covid-19 subsidies

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Maputo: Residents in Inhagóia B protest against exclusion from Covid-19 subsidies

8:20 CAT | 21 Apr 2021

Residents of the Inhagóia B neighbourhood in the city of Maputo are complaining about their exclusion from the payment of Covid-19 subsidies, a process to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic that started last year.

The group consists of elderly people, pregnant women, nursing mothers and unemployed men reliant on informal trading or odd jobs for survival. This Tuesday morning, they told ‘O País’ that they had never, since the beginning of the pandemic, been considered eligible for the grant.

Isabel Fabião, a widower who takes care of her orphaned grandson, says that since the outbreak of the pandemic, her situation at home has only worsened, and her hopes of help had gone unanswered since last year.

“I am elderly and I have not been eating properly. I was relieved when I heard that there was a subsidy for the victims of Covid-19, but I never received any such thing,” she complains.

The problem is that other neighbourhoods have already benefited from the subsidy, Elsa says. Neighbouring Inhagóia A has already received the promised 4,500 meticais plus a mobile phone, but they had not, nor been invited to apply.

“We just want to know, are we not from this country?” she asks. “We also are poor, we have no conditions; why are we excluded? Nobody ever says anything, but we have the same right.”

According to residents, the lack of information only exacerbates the situation. They only hear from the residents of other neighbourhoods about the subsidy issue, but they have never been officially informed, and now want an explanation.

Neighbourhood secretary Zaida Nhanengue said that she had never received information about any subsidy for the residents of Inhagóia B. What had perhaps happened was “agitation on the part of some people who hope to benefit,” but, “as a structure, we have already tried to understand the reason for the exclusion”, finding out that, in the KaMubukwana municipal district, only two neighbourhoods were selected, and theirs had not been contemplated.

“Without definitive information, we can’t motivate,” the neighbourhood secretary said.

In a note sent to ‘O País’, INAS confirmed that, in the municipal district of KaMubukwana, only the Luís Cabral and Inhagóia A neighbourhoods were the beneficiaries of the subsidy for socially and economically vulnerable people.

The same unrest is also abroad in the Mavalane B neighbourhood, also in Maputo, where residents present the same complaint.

By Julieta Zucula

Watch the Miramar report on protests in Maxaquene over the payment of these Covid-19 subsidies.