Africa-Press – Mozambique. Mozambican state spending on wages and salaries grew 0.2% in the first six months of this year, compared to 2024, to 106.668 billion meticais (€1.424 billion), according to official figures that Lusa had access to on Wednesday.
According to the budget execution report for January to June, this is 51.9% of the amount estimated by the government for the whole of 2025 and compares with expenditure of 102,705 million meticais (€1.371 billion) in the same period last year.
Mozambique’s government has budgeted 205,555 million meticais (€2.745 billion) for salaries and wages in the civil service for the whole of 2025, according to previous figures from the government.
Mozambique’s government spending on salaries and wages grew by around 40% in 2024, compared to the previous year, to 203,853 million meticais (€2.722 billion), according to the government, which in June last year estimated the total number of civil servants and state agents in Mozambique at 370,000.
Mozambique’s government acknowledged last year that the introduction of the Single Salary Table for the civil service had aggravated the state’s limited capacity to invest in priority areas, estimating a deviation of €285 million in two years.
“A significant portion of the resources generated by the economy is being absorbed by spending on wages and salaries. This situation has worsened with the start of the implementation of the Single Salary Table, limiting the government’s ability to invest in priority areas,” reads a government report on fiscal risks for 2025.
“With the wage bill representing an average of 14.5% of GDP [Gross Domestic Product] between 2021 and 2023 and an average deviation of 21.3 billion meticais (€285 million) concerning the initial appropriations planned, the management of the wage bill has been a major concern for public managers, so there is a need to find mechanisms for its sustainability,” the previous document from the Ministry of Economy and Finance also warned.
It added that for 2025, the “pessimistic scenario foresees an estimated additional expenditure of 31 billion meticais (€414 million)”, which is “explained by the sensitivity of the wage bill to the slower growth of nominal GDP”.
“The medium-term outlook for the wage bill as a proportion of GDP suggests a slower reduction in the pessimistic scenario (13.6% on average) compared to the base scenario (12.3% on average), with a converging trend in 2027,” it also pointed out.
The application of the Single Salary Table has been strongly contested by various professional classes, such as doctors and teachers, with a record of salary delays and cuts, including in the security forces, leading to sectoral strikes and stoppages, particularly in health and education.
Approved in 2022 to eliminate asymmetries and keep the state’s wage bill under control, the start of the TSU has caused salaries to soar by around 36%, from 11.6 billion meticais per month (€155 million) to 15.8 billion meticais (€211 million), according to previous official figures.
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