Maputo, March 26, 2026 (Lusa) - The World Bank has said Mozambique's public sector is "not oversized" with its 357,000 staff compared to regional peers, but remains constrained by a "sharp increase" in the payroll following 2022 reforms.
"The sharp increase in the payroll was driven by salary increases, rather than increases in the workforce," reads the World Bank's Mozambique Economic Update report, released on Wednesday under the title "From Fragility to Stability – Why Fiscal Reforms Cannot Wait," the document notes the change.
The World Bank estimates the public service wage bill rose from less than 5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2000 to 15% in 2023.
"Base salaries increased rapidly after the 2022 payroll reform," the report points out. It estimates that between 2021 and 2022 alone, the period when the government introduced the new single salary scale (TSU) in public service, this expenditure grew 40%.
"Part of this reflects the incorporation of subsidies into the base salary. The size of the public sector has not increased rapidly in recent years," the document stresses. It notes that Mozambique had 357,000 public employees in 2023, "an average annual increase of 2.9% over the last six years."
"The public sector is not oversized compared to its regional and income peers," the World Bank report acknowledges.
In 2022, the document adds, public sector employment represented 3.9% of the working-age population (ages 15 to 64), compared to an average of 8.3% in the subset of sub-Saharan African countries with available data.
Mozambique's president, Daniel Chapo, promised in July 2025 to correct "inconsistencies" in the TSU (single salary scale) to ensure justice for state employees.
Public employees from different sectors, such as education and health, presented concerns to the president. They complained about delays in overtime payments and demanded "better placement" in the TSU. The system has faced heavy criticism over the last three years, leading to strikes by teachers, doctors, and judges, among other groups.
The government approved the TSU in 2022 to eliminate imbalances and keep the state wage bill under control, but it caused salaries to jump by around 36%. Monthly expenditure rose from 11.6 billion meticais (€169 million) to 15.8 billion meticais (€231 million), according to previous government data, although employees complain of imbalances and pay cuts.
The TSU cost about 28.5 billion meticais (€410 million), "more than expected," according to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) document evaluating the Mozambique assistance programme released in early 2024.
In December 2024, the Ministry of Economy and Finance explained that the TSU reform aims to standardise and reduce designations for similar professional functions and categories. It also establishes a salary scale that brings together professional roles with identical work content and complexity.
Furthermore, the ministry said the reform intends "to value and professionalise" public servants working in the state's direct and indirect administration to ensure "continuous improvement in the provision of quality public services".
PVJ/LYT // AYLS
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