Starting on 1 June, the Mozambican Health Professionals Association (APSUSM) is likely to go on a strike unless there is a last-minute deal struck with the government.
APSUSM’s chairperson, Anselmo Muchave, told a press conference that his organisation will down tools unless government meets with its demands, namely improved wages and working conditions – the strike is to last 25 days, which can be extended if need be.
This follows in the heels of an 18-day strike by doctors in 2022, who were also demanding improved working conditions and wages. The doctors felt they were short-changed in government’s attempts to implement the Single Wage Table (TSU), passed in December 2021.
The TSU is an attempt to create a single payroll system out of 108 different wage tables and a whole range of supplements and subsidies.
On Tuesday, country’s parliament, the Assembly of Republic, turned down government’s proposal to revise the law implementing the TSU, by scaling down their salaries from $4,024 to $2,729, and submitted their counter-proposal.
Basically, the implementation of the TSU was chaotic, which led to lots of complaints and critically, increased the civil service payroll. Consequently, government is now trying to clean up its mess. A source inside the Finance and Economy ministry, said that the whole idea was that no one could earn more than the president, turning the system a sort of Nyusi’s reign and himself a type of a king.
Unfortunately, chaotic describes Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi’s tenure at the helm of the country. Nyusi’s campaign slogan was “Eu Confio em ti, Nyusi (I Trust You, Nyusi)”, but do Mozambicans still have reasons to trust him?
With less than two years left in his second and final term in the office, Nyusi cannot claim to be a happy man – almost all his ideas or big projects have not yielded the desired outcome.
Nyusi promised Mozambicans a hospital, a bank, a court and a jail in each of the country’s 154 districts. This is yet to come to pass. A big agricultural project named “Sustenta”, which was hailed as transformative and with potential to revolutionise the country’s agriculture, is slowly fading into obscurity – “Sustenta” had the backing of the World Bank, which is now saying that it does not support it.
He brought into his government business-people who lack the political tact to create conditions for Mozambicans to thrive. Meanwhile, suspicions abound that some of these ministers are helping him to line his pockets to buy political support from the ruling Frelimo party’s provincial secretaries, who drive the narrative that he is the best thing that has ever happened to Mozambique.
Seemingly, some of Mozambican traditional donors have caught up with him and they are not financing the budget as much as they should. Even corporations such as the French oil giant, TotalEnergies, have chosen to manage their corporate responsibility funds rather than channel them through a state entity.
His steering of the insurgency war in the northern Cabo Delgado province has been baffling. For reasons still not clear, Nyusi decided to form a strange pact with Rwanda’s Paul Kagame to provide him with the troops to fight off the insurgents – at least, he can claim that the insurgency is now a spent force. And as an afterthought, he allowed help from the region.
Frelimo observers say that the party is no longer as cohesive as it used to be before, with lots of decisions being imposed on the members, eschewed party tradition of careful deliberation. Perhaps, Nyusi’s comrades are regretting the day they placed their trust on him. Do they trust him as well?
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