Good afternoon. Justice minister Helena Kida caused astonishment among the Mozambican public when she revealed that the state is spending the equivalent of over $250,000 a day on feeding a prison population of about 24,000. The figure is over three times what the government’s chief prison inspector quoted the cost as being last year. If it is accurate, quite how the government manages to spend so much money — over $10.50 a day per person, more than twice what the federal prison system in the United States spends on prison meals — is hard to imagine, and corruption must play a part in that.
The full Daily Briefing continues below for Pro subscribers. Subscribers to the Zitamar News tier can read the top half, including the full leader article, here.
Remarkably, Kida chose to complain about the pressure on her budgets, rather than asking the obvious question of why the state is apparently being subjected to daylight robbery, if it is. By comparison, the highest minimum wage in Mozambique, for workers in banks and insurance companies, is currently slightly over $9 a day, and in many sectors it is less than half that.
