- Mozambique's Labour Minister, Maria Helena Taipo, early this morning surprised her employees, that were supposed to attend the public, by looking into complaints about the Ministry's service. Shocked about the staff's late arrival, she ordered a day's wage cut for all.
The Provincial Labour Direction in Maputo - an institution answering directly to Ms Taipo's Ministry - did not have the best reputation when it comes to attending the public. Minister Taipo this morning therefore decided to see for herself how the Direction was doing its work.
In an unannounced "blitz visit" at 7:25 hours this morning, Ms Taipo was shocked to observe that out of the Direction headquarters' 28 employees, only two had arrived at their workplace 25 minutes after opening hours. These were the head of human resources and one service officer, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Labour today.
The Minister impatiently went to the veranda and started to wait for the other employees to show up. By 8 o'clock, however, she had to register that all offices and services of the Direction were still closed and that no more workers had arrived. Not even the director of the agency had arrived by that time.
Furious, she left the premises and decided to sanction the lazy workers.
Minister Taipo thus "ordered a wage cut corresponding to the day of today to be effectuated in the February salary for all employees at the Provincial Labour Direction in Maputo, including the proper Provincial Director, for having ignored the service's working hours provision," the Ministry statement says.
The wage cut was communicated to the Provincial Direction through a press release, which at the same time was sent out to Mozambican media by Ministry spokesperson Jafar Buana. It remained unclear whether the Provincial Director could expect more sanctions from his boss at the Ministry.
Meanwhile, Minister Taipo is being praised for her "blitz visit" and swift action against her Ministry's lazy workers, as Mozambicans at large experience very poor service from state agencies at a daily basis.
The lesson given by Minister Taipo is however not unique. Also in Sierra Leone, in the early 1990s, military junta member Captain Solomon Anthony Musa was known to have ordered late government workers to monkey dance as punishment for being late. Captain Musa soon made many enemies and was finally squeezed out of government.
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