Government explains why it prohibited disclosure of IMF financial report – A Verdade

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Government explains why it prohibited disclosure of IMF financial report – A Verdade

3:39 CAT | 30 Nov 2022

File photo: A Verdade

Mozambique’s Minister of Economy and Finance, Ernesto Max Tonela, has explained to @Verdade newspaper why the government prohibited the disclosure of the technical report of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) produced at the beginning of the year.

In the prelude to the resumption of financial assistance to Mozambique, interrupted in 2016 after the discovery of illegal debts, an IMF mission visited Maputo in the first months of 2022 to carry out an exhaustive assessment of the country’s finances and economy under Article IV of its charter, an imperative to which all member countries are submitted at least once a year.

Although the IMF Board of Directors on 9 May approved a new three -year Financial Program for Mozambique worth US$456 million, the financial institution did not publish the technical report produced under Article IV.

Last week, the head of yet another International Monetary Fund mission, Álvaro Piris, revealed to journalists in Maputo that the Mozambican government had prohibited the release of the report.

“They have asked for alterations in the initial report,” he said, “in a process which is envisaged in the IMF internal regulations. The authorities did not accept the publication and so it is the staff report that will be published, on the first evaluation of the programme in the coming days”.

“Our policy is very clear. The publication of the technical reports is presumed, but voluntary. Thus, in the final analysis, the authorities can deny their consent to the publication of a report on the country. They have done so, although I admit this is not very common,” Piris explained.

Confronted by @Verdade on Monday (28-11), Minister Tonela began by clarifying that the IMF “says that we do not approve but also says that its publication is optional, in accordance with the rules of the International Monetary Fund, and all the objectives that are in the Agreement (of the new financial program), both in terms of quantitative goals and qualitative goals, are approved”.

“There is a review of a specific aspect that has nothing to do with the subject of the agreement (with the IMF), otherwise the Board of Directors (of the IMF) would not even have approved the new financial program. The government suggested an adjustment, and we expect publication as soon as the matter is settled with the [International Monetary] Fund,” Mozambique’s economy and finance chief explained.

The @Verdade has learned that the “adjustment” that the Government intends to include in the IMF technical report produced under Article IV is related to the sustainability of the Public Debt,

READ: Mozambique: Government bans IMF financial report – AIM report

Source: A Verdade