Free maternal healthcare, a 15 percent salary increase for workers in the public service and the setting up of anti-corruption bodies are some of the measures Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza announced in a message to the nation on the eve of Labour Day, marked worldwide on 1 May.

"Current salaries do not allow workers to make ends meet," he said in the central province of Gitega in a speech aired nationwide on state-owned Radio Burundi.

He said the pay rise, effective 1 July, was coming at a time when the Burundian franc — exchanging at 1,000 to the US dollar — had "dropped dramatically." Full Article [1]