Mozambique: Conjunctivitis outbreak affecting productivity – businesses

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Mozambique: Conjunctivitis outbreak affecting productivity – businesses

8:52 CAT | 23 Mar 2024

Photo: CTA

he president of Mozambique’s Confederation of Economic Associations (CTA), Agostinho Vuma, warned on Friday in Maputo that the conjunctivitis outbreak affecting several regions of the country is affecting business productivity.

“The outbreak of conjunctivitis is affecting labour productivity. Companies have been laying off affected employees, who are staying at home for more than 15 days, affecting company performance,” said Vuma, speaking at the first ordinary plenary session of the Labour Consultative Commission, which also includes the government.

The ministry of health recently indicated that the number of Mozambicans infected with the adenovirus that causes haemorrhagic conjunctivitis has risen to approximately 17,000, particularly in the provinces of Nampula and Sofala.

“Companies are part of society, and as such they have a responsibility, not only because their most precious resource is the worker, but also for the families who guarantee the market for the products they produce. In this vein, in solidarity with the haemorrhagic conjunctivitis that is affecting our public, we would like to call on the community to unite and be attentive to the guidelines issued by the health authorities in order to mitigate the spread of this disease and protect everyone’s health,” appealed Vuma.

On 11 March, according to official figures, at least seven Mozambican provinces had cases of conjunctivitis, most of them in Nampula, in northern Mozambique. Meanwhile, at the Beira Central Hospital in Sofala province alone, the largest health unit in the centre of the country, there had been an accumulation of 2,800 cases of conjunctivitis by 19 March. Agostinho Vuma also warned of Mozambique’s “two-speed” economic growth, with the positive performance concentrated in the extractive industry, which is “less than desirable given the lost economic value due to the successive crises that have plagued the business sector”.

“These financial difficulties have also resulted in the bankruptcy of many companies. In this regard, it’s worth mentioning that a few days ago, Mozambique’s Tax Authority reported that 3,000 companies had been declared insolvent, with negative impacts on employability, income generation and the state’s ability to collect revenue,” said the CTA president.

In the same speech, Vuma called for the draft bill on private security, which “the private sector has been advocating for almost ten years”, to be discussed “later this year” at the Labour Consultative Commission.

“This is one of the sectors that employs the most people and unfortunately it has been characterised by precarious employment relationships. We believe that with the introduction of the law, this scenario of precarious labour relations could improve significantly,” he said.

He also said that within the “framework of the proposal for the staggering of service timetables”, proposed by the ministry of transport and communications, it is worth “emphasising the merits of the document and the benefits” that it “can bring to the fluidity of urban transport”.

“However, in order for it to materialise, the proposer must harmonise it with the recommendations issued by the specialised technical subcommittees of this body, especially with regard to its compliance with current regulations, especially the Labour Law,” he pointed out.

Source: Lusa