On Tuesday, the Deputy Minister of State Administration and Civil Service said that the government would not meet the salary demands of the Mozambican Medical Association (AMM) because it considers them illegal.

Speaking in Maputo, after the 29th session of the Council of Ministers, Inocêncio Impissa said that complaints about seniority and overtime were off the table.

The government believes that the two claims raised by the AMM stem from a failure to interpret the doctors' remuneration statutes. Thus, of the 15 initial claims, which were later reduced to 11, the government is only dealing with nine.

The government assumes that it will not accept the two complaints because they are marginal to the law and because they demand a desire for differentiation on the part of the majority of state employees.

According to Inocêncio Impissa, doctors have adopted a misinterpretation of seniority, which, particularly for the profession, already provides for the addition of 10% to the basic salary on doctors' pay slips, namely at three, seven, 12 and 18 years of service in the civil service. He explained that this percentage is calculated in accordance with the law, based on the basic salary without allowances or any deductions, and then added to the same basic salary.

"The Medical Association believes that the salary plus all allowances should be calculated and therefore 10% should be imposed. This interpretation is not really legal, nor is it technically correct, because in the light of the laws, the rules, salary is only what is received on account of the professional category. And in that [order], [the percentage] has been calculated on the basis of the gross salary before the deduction and does not, of course, include any allowances," he clarified.

The AMM has been recommended to consult the Administrative Court to check how seniority is calculated, which, for the time being, "follows the same formula for all state employees. And this is how the government is proceeding".

Regarding the calculation of overtime, the AMM's demand is that, for the same amount of overtime, doctors should be paid four times more than other civil servants. He also stressed that, on the basis of the law passed between 2012 and 2013, doctors are entitled to overtime under the terms that apply to state employees.

"What this means is that, if an employee in any sector other than the doctor is paid 250 meticais for the same hour, for the same period of extra work, the doctor should be paid four times as much. Let's face it, this is relatively strange and differentiating. That's the bottom line," he said.

In addition, he explained that the obstacle stems from the approval of a decree that is foreign to the law and which, due to its unconstitutionality, cannot be applied.

"Once this law was passed in 2013, a Decree was passed some time later regulating this same law. However, the Decree approves a rule contrary to the Law. This means that it deals with a matter that is foreign to the Law. It is therefore not possible to implement this rule because it is illegal. A Decree, as a rule, cannot introduce a matter that goes beyond or against the provisions of the Law. That's why the government never got around to implementing this rule. That is why it is necessary to amend this rule to bring it into line with the law. This rule, which differentiates the treatment of doctors' overtime from that of other employees, is illegal. The only solution is to actually comply with the law and not to revise it," he explained.

However, the Executive recognizes that it has to pay overtime for some years to employees in various sectors, not just doctors.