Mozambique has food reserves for next three months – AIM report

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Mozambique has food reserves for next three months – AIM report

7:00 CAT | 02 Apr 2020

File photo: Lusa

The Mozambican government has guaranteed that the country has enough food stocks to supply the public for the next three months.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, at the end of a meeting of the Council of Ministers (Cabinet), the government spokesperson, Deputy Justice Minister Filimao Suaze, said there were problems with just two items regarded as an essential part of the Mozambican diet, wheat and chickens.

The vast majority of wheat consumed in Mozambique is imported, and Suaze said the problem was simply a bureaucratic matter of clearing consignments of wheat through Mozambican customs. He declared that customs clearance must be speeded up, in order to guarantee supplies of the raw materials the country’s bakers need.

As for chickens, Suaze was confident that Mozambique’s own poultry producers would soon be able to overcome the deficit in the supply of chicken meat

He sad the government is trying to mitigate the impact on trade of the lockdown decreed by the South African government in its attempt to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 respiratory disease. This would require forming a partnership between Mozambique’s large wholesalers, and the small retailers of the informal market.

Suaze urged traders not to charge speculative prices for the goods they sell, and not to hoard products during the state of emergency that came into effect on Wednesday.

The state of emergency lasts for 30 days, and can be renewed for two further 30 day periods. Under the Mozambican constitution the state of emergency cannot last for more than 90 days – and according to Suaze, the country has enough food in stock to cover this entire period.

Suaze declined to give any specific details about the state of emergency and how it would be enforced, on the grounds that the matter was still under discussion in the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic (which did not ratify President Filipe Nyusi’s declaration of a state of emergency until almost 23.00 on Tuesday evening).

Source: AIM