Mozambique: Country breaks teacher hiring ban

MOZAMBIQUE 85:
IMF TEACHER HIRING BAN BROKEN
SAMORA-LIKE VISITS
CORRECTION TO MINISTERS LIST
CEL-PHONE NUMBER CHANGE
SIMPLIFIED TRADING RULES
DRUG ARREST

News reports and clippings no. 85
from Joseph Hanlon
([email protected])
28 February 2005

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CORRECTIONS TO ELECTION SPECIAL BULLETIN 39

We have two corrections to the government list sent out with the final
election special bulletin:

Labour Minister Soares Nhaca was previously governor of Manica

The Frelimo Political Commission has only 14 elected members, not 15 as
often stated, and Prime Minister Luisa Diogo is only an ex officio member
(because of her post as Prime Minister) and does not vote. The confusion
came about because she was listed on the Frelimo website
http://www.frelimo.org.mz/comissao.htm
as a Political Commission member. The website has now been changed.

Thus only two ministers are elected members of the Political Commission:
Foreign Minister Alcinda Abreu and Interior Minister Jose Pacheco.

MOBILE PHONE NUMBERS HAVE EXTRA ZERO AT END

All mobile telephone numbers in Mozambique will have an extra zero added
at the end, from March.

IMF SAYS NO MORE TEACHERS
BUT MOZAMBIQUE IGNORES BAN

The new Mozambique government has probably broken its agreement with the
IMF by hiring sufficient teachers. All over Africa, the IMF has imposed a
cap on government wages of between 7 per cent and 7.5 per cent of GDP
(gross domestic product, effectively national income). In nearly all
countries, teachers are the biggest part of the wage bill, and by setting
the cap as a percentage of GDP, it means the poorest countries, which
usually have the biggest educational needs, can hire the fewest teachers.
This, in turn, means these countries are less likely to meet the
Millennium Development Goals.

Initially the Ministry of Education said it needed to recruit a further
10,000 teachers for this year, but because of the IMF cap, the Ministry of
Finance only allowed the hiring of 4000. This left people who have
recently graduated from teacher training colleges without jobs, and many
pupils without teachers. The new Education Minister, Aires Aly, arrived at
work to face protests from all over the country. Last week he announced
that the Ministry of Finance will allow him to hire 5000 extra teachers.
But what will the IMF say?

The restriction is contained in the Letter of Intent and Memorandum of
Economic and Financial Policies which is on the IMF’s website at
http://www.imf.org/External/NP/LOI/2004/moz/01/index.htm#mefp
It says: “Total current expenditure is programmed to decline … with the
government's wage bill falling from 7.5 percent of GDP in 2003 to 7.3
percent in 2004.”

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