An investigation into Mozambique’s Public Service has found a catalogue of abuses including irregular payments, falsification of documents and improper hiring of staff.
General Director of the Inspectorate of the Public Administration, Augusto Mangove (pictured) told a press conference the worst abuses had been found in public institutes, foundations and funds.
“The rules for public tendering were not observed and board members remained in their posts even though their terms of office had expired,” Mr Mangove said.
“Worse still, most of the institutes had not set up supervisory boards, which are the bodies that are supposed to guarantee internal control,” he said.
Mr Mangove said his team had found “enormous disparities” in salaries paid to officials.
“Some of these bodies paid the chairpersons of their boards around 500,000 meticals ($A10,875) while others, with exactly the same classification, were paid only 150,000 meticals ($A3,262) a month,” the General Director said.
He said there were also cases where senior officials were paid twice, for example among doctors at the Jose Macamo Hospital in Maputo, and in the education sector in Tete Province.
“We found that most Ministries do not have a plan for the development of their human resources,” Mr Mangove said.
“We also have institutions that do not have green lines, where the public can phone in complaints.”
He said that in the first half of the year 23 ordinary and extraordinary inspections were held of Ministries and other public institutions.
The extraordinary inspections were those that resulted from complaints or from whistle blowers denouncing irregularities.
“Public Servants should be guided by ethical principles and should refrain from corrupt practices because we shall be extremely tough against corrupt officials,” Mr Mangove said.
Maputo, 19 July 2021
