Mozambique: Palma district public employees ordered to return to work by Tuesday – Media Fax

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Mozambique: Palma district public employees ordered to return to work by Tuesday – Media Fax

5:05 CAT | 27 Jan 2021

FILE PHOTO- Palma District Government headquarters. [File photo. Social Media]

The government of the district of Palma, in the north of the province of Cabo Delgado, has ordered the return to work of all civil servants and state agents assigned to the area.

These are the civil servants and other government employees who have preferred, for reasons related to the deterioration of security conditions and the consequent unease, to “play it safe” by leaving the district for relatively safer regions, such as the provincial capital, of Pemba.

The deadline for presentation – next Tuesday, February 2nd – is given in a document from the Palma District Secretariat reference number 11, signed by the director, Rosa Flora Pilale.

‘Appropriate measures’ will be taken against those who do not present themselves, it adds.

State officials and other government agents in Palma confirmed to mediaFAX that the document was authentic, and also that state institutions are sorely resenting the absence of their employees.

As reported in recent editions, despite the intense and selfless work of the Defence and Security Forces in the district’s villages, fear continues to live in the faces and minds of many citizens of Palma. Indeed, a 6:00 p.m. curfew is in effect, by order of the Defence and Security Forces.

“After 6:00 p.m., you don’t go out. For example, both the square near the beach and the hospital, and by way of the market – everything is silent. Only the [FDS] forces are around,” one resident said.

In December, the insurgents left a note in one of the villages threatening to attack the town of Palma on the 5th of January, but no attack ever happened.

The demand for the return to work of state officials comes months after a terrorist attack in Muidumbe killed civil servants who had just returned to their posts by order of the local government.

In Palma, in addition to security issues, residents complain of the never-ending rise in the price of staple products. This is aggravated by the fact that land connections continue to be unsafe, ambushes having taken place in the Pundanhar area.

Source: MediaFax