Dozens of employees of the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Mozambique gathered early this morning in front of the ministry’s headquarters in Maputo, to protest against errors in the new salary scales in force in the state.
Witnesses told Lusa that workers from that ministry left their work offices, soon after the beginning of another working day, crowding outside the main entrance.
The workers spontaneously dispersed a few hours later, still in the morning, under the watchful eye of members of the Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR) and the Protection Police.
In a video that recorded the agglomeration and disseminated on social networks a woman’s voice can be heard saying: “We want what is rightfully ours”, in an allusion to cases of reduction in wages that the Government has already assumed are being caused by errors in the framework of the new Single Wage Scale (TSU).
The Ministry of Economy and Finance promised to make a statement on the matter today.
In a note it issued on the 28th, the Medical Association of Mozambique threatened to hold a national strike to challenge irregularities in its framing of the TSU, approved and enacted in October.
“The strike will last for 21 extendable days, starting at 7am on 7 November,” the Mozambican Medical Association said, a day after a national meeting of the class that brought together doctors from across the country.
In letters published in the media, groups of teachers have also threatened to paralyse activity and boycott the exams that will begin in the coming weeks, complaining about errors in the integration of new salary scales in the state.
Economy and Finance Minister Max Tonela said in October in parliament that “there is room” for civil servants to lodge complaints for the correction of their fitting into the new TSU.
“There is room for people, if they want to, to be able to complain about the framework and depending on that there is a response time and then we will have the definitive salaries,” Tonela said.
The TSU was approved by parliament and promulgated by the President of the Republic for the second time in October, after the document was returned by the executive to Parliament following the detection of “inconsistencies.”
The new state wage matrix has 21 levels, between 8,756 and 165,758 meticais (between 134 and 2,580 euros), instead of 103 levels, as was the case previously.
Lusa
