Government Increases Public Administration Wages
Maputo, 18 Jan (AIM) – The Mozambican government on Tuesday announced an increase in wages for workers of the public administration of well over 80 per cent, and in some cases over 100 per cent, in the latest stage of implementing the new Single Wage Table (TSU).
Speaking to reporters after the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers (Cabinet), the Deputy Minister of State Administration, Inocencio Impissa, said that the minimum monthly wage in the state administration rises from 4,689 to 8,758 meticais (from 73 to 137 US dollars, at the current exchange rate). This is an increase of 87 per cent and covers about 52,000 state employees. These new wages have already been paid, as from October 2022.
Higher up the career structure, the increases are based largely on qualifications. Thus, the monthly wage of a mid-level technical staff member almost doubles, rising by 98 per cent, from 7,553 to 14,758.
Staff with a bachelor’s degree receive an 80 per cent increase in their minimum wage, which rises from 13,565 to 24,538 meticais.
For “specialists”, the wage rise is no less than 144 per cent, rising from 24,882 to 60,758 meticais a month.
But, at the top end of the scale, the TSU results in a cut in salaries. Interviewed by Mozambican Television (TVM), Impissa said the basic wage of President Filipe Nyusi falls from 331,516 to 265,212.8 meticais a month, which is a cut in the presidential wage of 20 per cent.
The salaries of other high ranking state officials will also be revised downwards, added Impissa, but he gave no details. Nor did he say what will happen to the various bonuses and allowances paid to senior officials.
Impissa said that the cut in salaries for top officials “is a crucial stage in the implementation of wage reform in the state apparatus”, reducing the wage differentials in the public sector.
He admitted that the TSU does not solve all the problems affecting the various professional classes in the public administration, but it did solve wage imbalances.
The Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance, Amilcar Tivane, told journalists that the impact of the TSU on the state budget had risen from an initial (in mid-2021) estimate of 19.5 billion meticais a year to 25 billion meticais with the latest changes.
The budget law for 2023, passed by the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, in December, puts a ceiling on state wages of 177 billion meticais (which is about 13.4 per cent of Mozambique’s Gross Domestic Product).
“Our commitment is to ensure that expenditure on wages does not exceed this amount”, said Tivane. “If it does exceed the limits, that could cause pressure, and we will have less room to manage equally important expenditure, such as capital expenditure”.
(AIM)
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