allAfrica.com: Mozambique: Public Service Not Too Large, But Poorly Distributed (Page 1 of 2)

The number of public servants employed by the Mozambican state is not particularly large, agues the Minister for the Public Service, Victoria Diogo, but too many of them are in the central apparatus and not enough are in the rural districts.

Interviewed by AIM, Diogo said that the number of public servants recorded by the census carried out in all state departments in 2007 was 162,424. During the census serious irregularities were found, affecting a total of 35,000 people.

Diogo denied that these were all "ghost workers" (people who only exist on paper, in order to siphon off money into the pockets of dishonest officials). The irregularities included a large number of perfectly real workers, but who had no contract, or whose contracts had expired.

Diogo said it was possible to regularize the situation of 16,000 of these cases. The rest were those who could not be employed in the state for legal reasons (there were less than a thousand of these), and those described simply as "unknown".

How could this happen? Diogo said the census began with estimates provided by each state department. These estimates were sometimes seriously inaccurate, and she admitted there were cases where the "unknowns" had been receiving wages.

There were also problems in communication. It can take a long time for information on the death of a civil servant in a rural district to reach the provincial government, and then the central apparatus.

Perhaps the most glaring irregularity was that the great majority of public servants had no tax number (NUIT). The tax numbers were introduced in the 2002 reform of personal income tax. All people in gainful employment should have a tax number. The tax is deducted from their wages every month, and each year a declaration of their income is delivered to the tax department.

The system will not work without individual tax numbers. Yet the census found that 114,000 public servants had no NUIT. This meant they could not be registered because the computerized system used for the census would not accept forms that had no tax number. So during the census each of these 114,000 people was given a NUIT.

The question arises - what happened to the income tax that was deducted from these public servants' wages? Diogo doubted that the money had been stolen. She thought it had been channeled to the Finance Ministry "but not in a regular, correct manner". Since without the tax number no proper instruments of control were in place, she admitted that some of the money could have been diverted.

About 80 per cent of the state payroll consists of education and health staff - and there are still nowhere near enough of them. Diogo said that to achieve the target of full primary education for every child by 2015, the pupil/teacher ratio should come down to about 50 pupils per teacher (currently the figure is around 70).

Diogo wanted to see a redistribution of staff by cutting the number of people employed at ministry headquarters in Maputo. "We have to slim down the central apparatus, and we have to remember what the purpose of the state is", she said. "We need people in the districts and not so many in the ministries".

The government is currently drawing up a new wage policy for the public sector. The purpose, Diogo said, was to recruit and retain good professionals to work for the state, particularly in the districts. She insisted that the state should not be a refuge "for those who can't find jobs anywhere else".

Wages in the state sector have been distorted by project finance. In order to retain staff for projects they fund, donors have been prepared to top up their wages, thus introducing huge differentials in the public service. "But when the project ends, so does the topping up", said Diogo. "This is not sustainable".

"We have to harmonise the foundations of the wage system", she said. "We will work with the donors to eliminate the Project Implementation Units".

She wanted an end to specialists, who are theoretically employed by the state, jumping from one project to the next. "We have cadres who go from project to project", Diogo said. "When one project ends, they look for another one. What capacity does this leave inside state institutions ?"

She suggested that the money used for topping up wages in projects, should be paid into a wages fund run out of the state budget. Diogo admitted that ending the topping-up system must be done gradually "to avoid sharp breaks".

Diogo added that the state pensions system must also be overhauled. Currently many people are reluctant to leave the state apparatus at retirement age, because they will suffer a sharp drop in income. A state pension is calculated on the basic wage, and takes no account of the various subsidies and bonuses that often make up the bulk of take-home pay.

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