In 2024, the government spent 203.8 billion meticals (around 5.3 billion dollars) on wages and salaries, an increase of 62.2 billion meticals (974.5 million dollars) on the previous year. The implementation of the Single Wage Scale (TSU) was the main factor responsible for the growth in public spending, which exceeded the Executive’s initial forecast for salary payments by 12.1 billion meticals.
Personnel costs rose from 146.3 billion meticals in 2023 to 209.9 billion meticals in 2024, a nominal increase of 63.6 billion meticals. In addition, subsidies rose from 1.3 billion to 2 billion meticals over the same period. These figures demonstrate the growing impact of the wage bill on the state’s accounts, with the TSU being the centrepiece of this rise.
Created to standardise the salaries of state employees and agents, the TSU has turned out to be a more expensive reform than initially projected. The government had estimated a cost of 19.2 billion meticals, but according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the measure ended up representing a real expense of 28.5 billion meticals due to errors in the mapping of employees to the new table.
Since its introduction, the TSU has been a challenge for the sustainability of public finances and has also become a source of instability in the civil service, with successive strikes and demands.
In terms of state spending as a whole, there was a significant increase in operating expenses, which rose from 237.4 billion meticals in 2023 to 339.2 billion meticals in 2024, an increase of 101.8 billion meticals.
The increase in spending on salaries worsens the weight of the payroll in the budget and raises concerns about the country’s financial sustainability, requiring the government to adopt a containment strategy to avoid further imbalances in public accounts.
Carta de Moçambique
