Mozambique: Youths demonstrate in Palma, Cabo Delgado, against alleged exclusion

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Mozambique: Youths demonstrate in Palma, Cabo Delgado, against alleged exclusion

7:07 CAT | 24 May 2018

Photo courtesy of CIVILINFO

About 100 young people demonstrated on Wednesday in the town of Palma in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado, complaining of a lack of employment opportunities because the available jobs have allegedly all gone to people from the south of the country.

According to a correspondent from Sekelekani, a Mozambican NGO specialising in communication for development, the youth were from Palma district and other parts of Cabo Delgado.

They had hoped for jobs in quarries, and in engineering and cement companies in Palma. Because of the discovery of vast quantities of natural gas in the Rovuma Basin, off the coast of Palma, the small district capital is about to become a major industrial centre.

The demonstrators claim that the jobs they wanted have been “usurped” by people from the southern provinces, transported in buses to Palma. The distance from Maputo to Palma is over 2,700 kilometres, and so far there is no confirmation that any company has hired buses to make such a journey to bring in unskilled and semi-skilled workers who are readily available in Cabo Delgado.

The demonstrators claimed that announcements of vacancies are published in newspapers that do not reach Palma. They wanted the jobs advertised on the local community radio, and demanded that only local people should be recruited.

According to the Sekelekani correspondent, the demonstration lasted for about five hours. There were no reports of any violence.

The Executive director of Sekelekani, Tomas Vieira Mario, writing on his Facebook page, warned that the demonstration showed there had been “extremely poor management of expectations”, and “lack of access to truthful and timely information”.

He feared a “a possible exploitation of regionalist feelings for political purposes”.

Source: CIVILINFO, Agência de Informação da Sociedade Civil