Government promises To meet most demands made by striking doctors

One of the points in dispute is seniority payments. Speaking at a Maputo press conference. Tiago said doctors benefit from seniority payments at four moments in their career – unlike other employees of the public administration who only receive these payments twice.

“The doctors receive seniority payments after completing three, seven, 12 and 18 years of service, while other public servants only receive them after 24 and 30 years”, he said.

During the Health Ministry’s own investigations, it found that, out of the 136 doctors claiming seniority payments, only 38 are not yet benefitting from them. In some cases, said Tiago, they do not meet the requirements – including doctors who have only been working for two years.

The strikers also want immediate payment for overtime. Some of the overtime payments have been owing for more than three years. Tiago promised that payment for overtime worked prior to 2020 will be paid this month.

Overtime payments referring to 2022 and 2023 will be paid as from August, he added.

Tiago warned that the formulas for calculating seniority payments and overtime cannot be altered because there are no legal grounds for doing so.

Tiago admitted there have been problems in including doctors in the new Unified Wage Table (TSU) for the public administration, but promised these would be corrected by Thursday.

As for claims that doctors had received a wage cut in May, Tiago said that those affected should have complained immediately. Furthermore, the new wage system “sometimes makes mistakes”. In any case, the wage arrears for these doctors would be paid in July.

Some of the claims made by the Mozambique Medical Association (AMM) were found to be fictitious. Thus the AMM claimed the government is not paying doctors their “location allowance”

The Ministry ran a check, and found that all those entitled to this allowance are receiving it.

The AMM also protested that the government had changed its team negotiating with the doctors. But Tiago retorted that the government had every right to put whoever it liked in charge of the negotiations. But it was only the political leaders on the team who changed – the technical staff remained the same.

“What is important is that the technical staff don’t change”, said the Minister. “What is intended in the negotiations is to maintain the institutional memory”.

Tiago urged the AMM to call off the strike. The government is prepared to carry on talking with the AMM, he said.

AMM General Secretary, Napoleao Viola, told reporters that on Tuesday, the second day of the strike, 75 per cent of the AMM’s members took strike action.

There has been no confirmation of this from the Health Ministry.
(AIM)