More than 2 000 employees at Angola’s second biggest port in Lobito have downed tools after going without pay for four months, striking workers said on Wednesday.
“We have families and it’s now four months since we have seen the colour of our money,” one striker Sebastiao Domingos said.
“Our employer promised to pay us last month but we haven’t seen anything.”
The strike action at Lobito, a state-run port which lies about 400km south of capital Luanda and handles mainly crude oil, began on Tuesday.
Port company spokesperson Domingo Isata told a local radio station that the facility had fallen “victim to economic and financial constraints that affected the transport of products”.
“The company is aware of this situation and we are going to quickly pay them at least one month’s salary,” he added.
Angola, which recently overtook Nigeria as Africa’s largest oil producer, pumps 1.78 million barrels of crude a day.
The drop in oil prices, which are now languishing around $50 a barrel, have strangled Angola’s currency reserves and hit the economy.
GDP growth, which reached highs of up to 20% in 2007, has shrunk and the economy is now expected to grow by a mere 2% in 2016.
More than a third of the Angolan population lives below the poverty line.
