Mozambique: Renamo calls for postponement of repeat elections - AIM
Noticias
The Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, on Thursday passed the first reading of the government’s budget for 2017.
As with all previous budgets, the opposition voted against. The budget therefore passed with 137 votes in favour, from deputies of the ruling Frelimo Party, while the 89 deputies present from Renamo and from the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) voted against.
Total revenue envisaged in the budget is 186.333 billion meticais (about 2.57 billion US dollars, at current exchange rates) while forecast public expenditure amounts to 272.288 billion meticais. That leaves a deficit of 85.955 billion meticais.
Covering this deficit is a challenge, given that all 14 donors and funding agencies who used to provide direct budget support suspended all further contributions last April, in the wake of the scandal of over a billion dollars worth of hidden debts.
The government expects the deficit to be covered by three sources – foreign loans (50.8 billion meticais), domestic loans (21.8 billion meticais), and foreign grants (14 billion). During the debate, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Adriano Maleiane, did not specify exactly where the government hopes the foreign loans and grants will come from.
On the second day of the debate, Frelimo deputies repeatedly called on Renamo to lay down its weapons and end its low-level insurgency. “The government’s work in some parts of the country is being disrupted by Renamo”, declared Esmeralda Mutemba. “How many childen are unable to go to school because of Renamo attacks? How many peasants are unable to till their fields?”
“The government is trying to defend the population from the atrocities of Renamo”, said Valdemiro Nhachengo. “It’s Renamo that kills, mains and robs. Renamo is a plague and should be extirpated”.
“Renamo doesn’t know what it’s doing, doesn’t know what it’s saying. They’ve lost all sense of direction”, accused Helder Injojo. “Mozambicans want to see the country grow and develop and they know that only we, Frelimo, will do that”.
Several Frelimo deputies pointed out that Renamo deputies always vote against the state budget, but also always collect their wages which are paid out of the state budget. “It’s been like this ever since 1994 (the date of the first multi-party elections)”, said Lutse Rumeia. “This opposition does not grow”.
Renamo deputies claimed the government’s 2017 economic and social plan and the accompanying budget were unrealistic and deceitful, and that crime and corruption are the order of the day.
Jose Samo Gudo claimed that financial scandals and theft of funds in public companies were characteristic of the economic disaster overtaking the country. “Mozambique has been handed over to highly organised gangsterism”, he claimed
Antonio Muchanga, who is also the Renamo national spokesperson, alleged that the government is sabotaging the peace talks currently under way in Maputo, and made the familiar claim that the government wants to assassinate Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama, who is currently living in a military base in the central district of Gorongosa.
For the MDM, Silverio Ronguane said the government “is dragging the entire Mozambican people to disaster”, because of its “criminal and unpayable debts”. He demanded that the government suspend any further guarantees of loans, until the full truth is known about the loans illicitly guaranteed by the previous government to the quasi-public companies Ematum, Proindicus and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management).
Winding up the debate, Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario insisted that there are good prospects for economic recovery in 2017, particularly in agriculture. He believed that the latest reforms, exempting most agricultural inputs from customs duties and from Value Added Tax (VAT), will encourage agricultural production.
There were signs of stabilisation, particularly of the exchange rate. Over the past few weeks, the Mozambican currency, the metical, had gained significantly against other currencies, and Rosario urged businesses to ensure that these exchange gains are reflected in the prices they charge.
But he warned that securing improvements would depend on achieving “a lasting peace”.
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