Mozambique: Company in charge of EN6 maintenance keeps 50 workers in confinement – Watch

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Mozambique: Company in charge of EN6 maintenance keeps 50 workers in confinement – Watch

11:14 CAT | 08 May 2020

Photo: O País

An anonymous tip-off from a work site in Mafambisse, Dondo district, Sofala province on Thursday morning alleged the inhumane isolation of about 50 Mozambican workers by a Chinese contractor in charge of carrying out maintenance of National Road Number Six [EN6], supposedly as a coronavirus counter-measure, O País reports.

The complaint led to an inter-sectoral team of police, public prosecutors and members of the health and labour sector to travel to the site, where they found the gate closed and a notice on the door indicating that activities had ceased.

Through the fence made of a wall and a net, it was possible to see the empty front part of the yard. The members of the team banged on the door several times, but no one answered. About 10 minutes later, however, and after much persistence, the door was finally opened by the Chinese managers and, just minutes later, the commission found out that work was going on as normal at the site after all, and the workers had just been on break.

The workers were immediately screened, and claimed that they had been subjected to inhumane treatment since the 29th of March, with anyone caught trying to leave the yard losing their job.

“We are completing a quarantine that we are not aware of. We can’t get out of here. But, unfortunately, neither do they create conditions for our stay in this place. We do not have masks and the company does not provide any cleaning material. When we demand better conditions, they threaten us with expulsion. In fact, the rule here is, if anyone goes home, they lose their job. At the end of each day, we are forced to go bathe in a stream.”

If we are not inside by 6:30 pm, we will lose our jobs. Our greatest wish is to work in shifts, as per the Covid-19 presidential decree,” Alberto Faquir, one of the leaders of the group, explained.

To feed themselves, the employees resort to the company drivers, who sometimes leave the premises to purchase goods for the Chinese. Given the tight finances, they almost always buy dried fish and cornmeal, on which they survive.

In the midst of the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, these workers live in confinement and without any protection. They sleep in what looks like barracks, with the poorest of sanitation.

The head of the company acknowledges that he may have overdone some measures, saying that he intended only to prevent an outbreak of Covid-19, but the police were not convinced and he was referred to the Dondo district command, where a criminal case was opened.

The prosecutor’s office says there are sufficient grounds for opening a criminal case, “because the people in charge of the site know that there is a decree that must be observed and did not do so.

“They subjected workers to various risks, not creating conditions for adequate nutrition, let alone self-protection. So there is enough material to open a criminal case,” explained Latifo Jafar, a prosecutor and member of the inter-sectoral team.

By Francisco Raiva