Wage crisis in Ilha de Moçambique municipality after reduction in the FCA – Ikweli

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Wage crisis in Ilha de Moçambique municipality after reduction in the FCA – Ikweli

7:45 CAT | 22 Apr 2021

File photo: Município da Ilha de Moçambique on Facebook

The 250 employees and agents of the Municipal Council of Ilha de Moçambique, in the north of the country, have not been paid their salaries for two months, as a result of the reduction in the amount of the Municipal Compensation Fund (FCA) paid by the central government.

The more-than 120 citizens who work for the support sector cleaning beaches and streets are in the same situation, said Erula Atumane, spokesman for the municipality, which was the first capital of the country.

“The [financial] scenario is changing more and more, and one of the difficulties that we are facing today has to do with the reduction of budgets by the central government,” he said.

“Initially, in 2019 and the previous years, the budget allocated, mainly for the operation and payment of employees’ salaries, was 32,000,000.00 Mt (thirty-two million meticais) in total, which was allocated at 2,700,000.00 Mt (two million and seven hundred thousand meticais) for each month,” he explained.

“Now, since 2020, the 32,000,000.00 Mt has been reduced to 21,000,000.00 Mt (twenty-one million meticais), earmarked for the payment of wages, that is, a decrease to 1,800,000.00Mt (one million eight hundred thousand meticais) per month,” the Councillor for Finance in the largest tourist municipality in the north of the country remarked.

“This is a great blow to the municipality, because 1,800,000.00 Mt is enough to cover wages,” for which Mozambique Island Municipal Council needs 1,953,712.00 Mt a month.

We asked Councilman Erula what had been done to remedy the situation, to which he replied: “We have not had articulations with such good success. As I speak, we have been unable to articulate a certain amount for two months to try to compensate for this deficit.”

“In fact,” our interlocutor revealed, “there is money in the accounts, but we are still unable to create mechanisms to be able to pay, because if we pay now, one group will receive money but another will not, which is not good.” “In order to try to reverse this scenario, we have submitted a complaint to the competent authorities,” he added.

Another complaint voiced by Ilha municipality in relation to the FCA is that, even the amount reduced amount “is not channelled in a timely manner”. “For example, in February we were waiting for this money to be channelled so that we could pay salaries on time, but it ended up coming on March 10, creating constraints for fellow employees.”

At the municipal level, Atumane says that revenue collection stands at around 300,000.00 Mt per month, and that this amount is applied to current expenditure such as fuel for the vehicles collecting the 3,000 cubic meters of solid waste produced monthly, and paying for electricity for municipality institutions.

By Aunício da Silva

Source: Jornal Ikweli