Africa-Press – Mozambique. Mozambique’s National Association of Teachers (ANAPRO) on Sunday accused the government of telling lies about overtime payments.
“Currently some schools are paralysed because overtime referring to 2022 has still not been paid”, claimed the ANAPRO chaiperson, Isac Marengula, cited in Tuesday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”.
“One example”, he added, “comes from Alto Molocue district in Zambezia province, where the government has adoped a strategy of selecive payment. In some schools, out of a total of 30 teachers, only ten have received their overtime payments”.
ANAPRO thus categorically denied the government claim that all the overtime referring to 2022 has been paid. “This isn’t true – it’s a lie!”, declared Marrengula. Furthermore, the government made no reference to overtime payments owing since before 2022. He claimed that in Manica province, schools in nine districts have not received payment for overtime worked in 2021.
The government has also claimed that it has paid 50 per cent of the overtime from 2023, but Marrengula alleged that this was also untrue.
He said that initially a small group of teachers received the overtime payments referring to 2023 in full, while others received nothing at all. This year, under a new payment model, the government is paying “arbitrary sums”, he claimed.
Marrengula said there are cases of teachers who should receive overtime payments of between 150,000 and 180,000 meticais, but are receiving less than ten per cent of those sums. “Recently, the government has just made triumphalist speeches to entertain the media”, he declared.
This had led to the complete paralysis of some schools, he said, and a go-slow in many others. “This situation shows that the government does not prioritise teachers”, said Marrengula. “Currently most teachers are not working and are on a go-slow which is even more dangerous than an outright strike”.
He claimed that many teachers are avoiding national strikes, because the district education services have been meeting with the local administrators, and with the riot police to draw up strategies of repression against the teachers.
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