May 1st salary hangover in the Public Service in Mozambique: Government Insolvency Decree?

Paulo Vilanculo "

On the eve of International Workers' Day, Mozambique is experiencing a serious crisis of wage insolvency in the public sector. The systematic delay in payments exposes the financial fragility of the State and raises serious doubts about its institutional sustainability. The text analyzes the fiscal, political and economic context that led to the current situation, questioning whether the country is not, in practice, experiencing an undeclared government bankruptcy.

Keywords: Mozambique, May 1st, public service, wage insolvency, government crisis.

International Workers' Day, traditionally celebrated on May 1, finds Mozambique at a time of serious social tension. Celebrating International Workers' Day in Mozambique amid growing wage insolvency in the public sector is a glaring contradiction. Instead of celebrations, the atmosphere is one of uncertainty, indignation and despair, especially among public servants who, in many provinces, face salary delays. The date that should be marked by labor achievements and social progress becomes, in this context, a symbol of frustration and the structural collapse of the State.

The civil service is the backbone of the provision of essential services: health, education, justice, security and public administration. The civil service, responsible for guaranteeing essential services to the population, has been one of the most affected by this crisis. Hospitals with reduced staff, schools with unmotivated teachers and paralyzed administrative services are just some of the visible consequences. For many analysts, this reality represents not only a liquidity crisis, but the collapse of a State model that has become unsustainable.

Celebrating May Day in this context becomes almost ironic. Instead of achievements, there are cuts and setbacks. The working class, especially those in the public sector, is facing not only wage stagnation, but also galloping inflation that erodes purchasing power. What should be a moment of appreciation for workers is now a reflection of the failure of a State that has failed to fulfill its most basic function: paying its employees. Analyst Joseph Hanlon (2023) emphasizes that "a fiscal crisis is also a crisis of legitimacy," because the State loses its authority when it is unable to pay even the salaries of its agents. Without salaries, the Government loses authority and, with it, control over the very foundations of society.

More than a cyclical crisis, what Mozambique is experiencing is a collapse of the state architecture built since the 1990s, based on external revenues, neoliberal policies and a governing elite that has consolidated power at the expense of the common good. As Samir Amin (2014) warns, “without breaking with the peripheral and dependent model, African countries will be condemned to eternal crisis.”

“The crisis of the Mozambican state is not just fiscal, but structural,” argues economist Carlos Nuno Castel-Branco (2021). He argues that the political-economic system built in recent decades is based on dependence on external donors, growing public debt and institutionalized corruption. The result is a government that has become hostage to its own bureaucratic machine, incapable of even guaranteeing the wages of its workers. The Bank of Mozambique warned in February 2025 that “the pressure on the Treasury is unsustainable in the medium term, especially without urgent structural reforms.”

Professor Carlos Nuno Castel-Branco points out that "the Mozambican state spends more on itself than on social development", and this statement takes on dramatic proportions when state employees themselves are no longer being paid regularly. By not paying its workers on the expected dates, the Mozambican government is abdicating its fundamental role and creating a general discredit. The questions that arise are tough but necessary: ​​is Mozambique technically bankrupt? Are we facing an unofficial decree of government bankruptcy?

The government’s inability to regularly pay its civil servants’ salaries on time raises not only management issues, but also raises deeper doubts about the sustainability of the Mozambican state itself. Salaries do not only represent respect, but also economic sovereignty and a new social contract. Celebrating Workers’ Day is, paradoxically, a reminder of the symbolic failure of a state that no longer guarantees even the basics to its own civil servants. As the thinker Samir Amin (2014) warns, without economic sovereignty and a break with the model of dependency, the crisis will be permanent.

Although a government’s bankruptcy is not proclaimed in the same way as a company’s, the practical signs are similar: an inability to meet financial commitments, a collapse in public trust, and the breakdown of basic services. In this sense, wage insolvency is the visible symptom of a deeper illness: the exhaustion of a governance model that prioritized apparent stability and façade investments over social and economic sustainability. The question that arises is not only whether the government is financially bankrupt or not, but whether the national project itself, as it is currently structured, is still viable.

What we are experiencing today is more than a budget impasse; it is the exhaustion of a system. The crisis can therefore also be an opportunity, a call to reflect on the future of the Mozambican state, its mission, its legitimacy and its viability. The current crisis can be an opportunity for a new beginning, but this requires political courage, real reforms and, above all, respect for workers, who are the true driving force of the nation. The country needs to rethink its priorities, review its economic model and reestablish its social contract.

2025/12/3