Mozambique: Italy-Africa Summit opened "a green light of opportunities"
Notícias (File photo)
The Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) announced on Friday that it was unavailable for the parliamentary session scheduled for today, Monday 9 May, saying that notice was sent late and omitted any discussion of the public debt. The opposition party has proposed alternative dates.
A statement sent to Lusa says the Renamo parliamentary grouping considers the issues scheduled for the parliamentary session “irrelevant” in the face of what it says is their main concern, which is “the clarification of the public debt”. The opposition party has proposed alternative dates.
According to the main opposition party, the parliamentary session scheduled for May 23 was brought forward two weeks with inadequate notice, “undermining the pre-programmed and running agendas of the benches and the members of this body”.
In face to what it considers to be a “financial and economic darkness into which the country is plunged”, Renamo proposes a parliamentary session for 13 to 16 May focusing on the issue of debt, besides what was proposed by the permanent commission.
Although the statement does not mention the issue scheduled for today’s session, opposition party spokesman deputy Antonio Muchanga said that it is a visit by head of state Filipe Nyusi to China.
On 27 April, Renamo in parliament demanded an urgent debate on the revelations of debts contracted outside public accounts, and for the authors of these debts to be held “exemplarily accountable”.
Saying that “the people were swindled,” the parliamentary leader of Renamo, Ivone Soares, said at a press conference on Friday that her party had filed its fourth request in less than a month for the scheduling of a debate on public debt, all the others having been rejected by the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) majority party.
The Mozambican government has acknowledged the existence of debts of US$1.4 billion (EUR1.25 billion) deliberately kept off the public accounts, which it has justified on security grounds as being connected with strategic infrastructure.
The revelation of the government-guaranteed loans caused the International Monetary Fund to suspend the second installment of a loan to Mozambique and cancel a visit to Maputo.
The G14 group of state budget donors also suspended its payments, as confirmed last week the Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, during his state visit to Mozambique.
Several Mozambican government and Frelimo sources have voiced the intention of the executive to provide information to parliament soon.
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