Vera Daves de Sousa, who was speaking this Thursday on the sidelines of the presentation of the results of a study on financial inclusion in Angola, reassured public workers, stressing that 207 billion kwanzas (279.8 million euros) had already been paid and only a residual value of 5.5 million euros remains to be settled.
"There is still 4.1 billion kwanzas to be paid, which should be completed today. We want to reassure the Angolan men and women that the State continues to be able to fulfill its elementary commitments - wages, debt services, running costs of main institutions", said the minister.
According to Vera Daves de Sousa, the latest salary arrears have to do with "some lag between the time when revenue comes in and the date of our commitments".
"That sometimes causes some delays to happen, what we are doing to avoid these delays, which we are aware that has an impact on the lives of families, is with the budgetary units to calibrate priorities", said Vera Daves de Sousa.
The official stressed that for some categories of expenses the Government has to "recalibrate priorities, condense them, reduce them".
"So that in this environment where tax revenues are lower than we expected, we are having oil production with a performance below what we predicted when we closed the OGE [General State Budget], we are having the price of oil very volatile and in some months below what was foreseen", she pointed out.
The holder of the Finance portfolio underlined that in a scenario where tax revenues are lower, it is necessary to change governance priorities, always guaranteeing the commitments assumed, as is the case with salaries.
"June is calm, we will be able to close all salaries until today and from tomorrow we will start preparing ourselves so that in July we will also succeed and in the following months we will be able to fulfill this commitment so important for public workers, in due time and without causing stress to the families", she highlighted.
