The Confederation of Mozambican Economic Associations (CTA) announced this Friday in Maputo a set of definitive measures that it considers feasible to be adopted by the Government to create a legislation that allows the rational, controlled and uninterrupted use of Mozambican beaches. And said it will create an online control of vaccinated and unvaccinated employees in the tourism sector.

In the first instance, CTA suggests that the beaches be open only on weekends, Monday through Friday, "because then we will be sure that whoever is on the beach [on a workday] is doing tourism." That way, the CTA argues, there is a better chance of restricting crowds "because we know they happen more on weekends."

The second proposal is for guests of tourist instances more connected to or near beaches to "have a voucher [from such an instance] that gives them accessibility to the beaches."

And, finally, CTA suggests that a beach use legislation be created with signs permitting or forbidding the use of certain areas and division by families; also, perspective that the "maritime police" can be engaged in this enforcement activity, always visible when the beaches are closed for tourist activities.

Muhammad Abdullah, Chairman of the CTA's tourism portfolio, said that the agency's proposals are aimed at reviving the tourism sector that has been devastated by the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, whose negative impact continues to ripple through other sectors.

"The closure of the beaches is creating a scenario of uncertainty in the tourism sector. And, in this sense, we want, in a harder way, to create, with the Government, conditions for the beaches to be opened" given that, "since the last communication of the President of the Republic in the context of the pandemic, reservations for tourism began to fall washing up to the indebtedness of some tour operators," said Abdullah, during a press conference.

For his part, CTA's Vice President of Tourism, Hotels and Restaurants, Aurélio Mausse, reinforced the appeal to the Government to extend the relief that has been seen in the restaurant sector to the Catering and Events sector.

"We are hopeful that this will happen because it is a sector with many operators and it has also suffered just like the others, and [we reinforce our call] for people to resume their jobs and society to benefit from their services," he stressed.

The representative of the Tourism Workers Union, Albino Marreleco, said that in the hotel and tourism sector there are 64,136 workers, 26,370 of whom have had to stop working due to the pandemic.

"For various reasons, some have had their contracts temporarily suspended, others have had compulsory holidays, and others have continued to work and rotate," he explained. But he also appealed to employers to return to their jobs the same workers as always, as soon as conditions allow, because "they are not lost, we have control of everyone.

In another approach, the President of the CTA Tourism Department said that it is intended to create a link to the registry of all vaccinated and unvaccinated tour operators against covid-19, in order to vaccinate those who have not yet taken the doses.

However, the representative of the Tourism Sector Workers Union said that it is not known how many members have received the full doses of the vaccine, since each employee has had vaccinations during the campaigns. Nevertheless, he assures that 80% of the hotels have their employees already vaccinated.