Mozambique: CDD criticises delays and unpredictability in public salaries

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Mozambique: CDD criticises delays and unpredictability in public salaries

10:59 CAT | 29 Jun 2023

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: TVM]

The Centre for Democracy and Development, a Mozambican non-governmental organisation (NGO), yesterday criticised alleged delays and unpredictability in the payment of state salaries, noting that this month’s salaries had not yet been disbursed.

“Once again, state employees and agents enter the last week of the month without their salaries. The most serious thing is that nobody knows when the state will pay the salaries for the month of June,” a CDD statement says.

A source from the Ministry of Economy and Finance denied that there were delays in the payment of public administration salaries, insisting that salaries are paid between the 20th and 30th of each month.

“As long as we are within this time interval, there can be no talk of delay in the payment of wages,” the source stressed.

Salários voltam a atrasar na Função Pública e a Ministra Comoane diz que não há nenhum problema

Leia mais: https://t.co/AN4jbuaPg0 pic.twitter.com/RJKcTccEmY

— CDD – Centro para Democracia e Direitos Humanos (@CDD_Moz) June 26, 2023

However, several civil servants told Lusa that, three days before the end of the month, they have still not received their June salaries, contrary to what is usual.

“We have had cases where one month’s wages are paid the following month,” one primary school teacher said. “You don’t even know when your salary will arrive.”

This time, the CDD emphasises that there was a special occasion: thousands of Mozambican families spent Independence Day and the long weekend without funds, because the government did not pay their salaries.

The CDD points out that not even the most recent revision of the Single Salary Table (TSU) managed to resolve delays in the payment of salaries in the Civil Service.

“The state struggles with a lack of liquidity to pay salaries,” the text continues.

The difficulty is also felt in the delay with the private sector, with the executive being unable to “pay the invoices of contractors and suppliers of goods and services”.

Last week, the president of the Confederation of Economic Associations of Mozambique, Agostinho Vuma, said that delays in the payment of invoices by the state were slowing down the growth of small and medium-sized companies and harming the country’s economy, the CDD notes.

The private sector also complained about the delay in processing Value Added Tax (VAT) refunds. In 2022, out of 904 requests, estimated at 25.6 billion meticais (over €364 million), only 96 were approved, the NGO notes.

“Public accounts are under pressure, but the government does not want to admit it lacks the funds. The justification is always the same – the TSU,” the text reports.

According to the CDD, the executive says that there are delays on the part of some sectors in giving some conformity to the salary sheet in line with the recent TSU salary reform.

Source: Lusa