Despite warnings, Nampula councillors take office – AIM

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Despite warnings, Nampula councillors take office – AIM

9:12 CAT | 25 Oct 2017

DW / MDM members arrive to the Municpal Council on Monday, October 23, for the swearing in of the news councillors

Despite warnings of the illegality of his actions, the interim mayor of the northern Mozambican city of Nampula, Manuel Tocova, on Monday swore into office 10 city councillors, and six heads of Nampula administrative posts.

Tocova is the chairperson of the Nampula Municipal Assembly, and, following the murder on 4 October of the Mayor, Mahamudo Amurane, he is the most senior municipal official in the city.

He should become interim mayor, but he has not yet taken office in this capacity – which makes it impossible for him to swear other officials into office.

Much more serious is the provision of the municipal legislation, according to which, after a mayor has died or resigned, an interim mayor is only responsible for acts of day to day management in the period prior to a mayoral by-election, and cannot make sweeping changes in the city’s administration.

Last week Tocova sacked most of the city councillors who had worked with Amurane, and announced his intention to replace them all.

The Nampula branch of the Public Prosecutor’s Office immediately warned him that this was illegal, and instructed him to reinstate the councillors he had sacked.

The law is clear. In the event that a mayor dies, resigns or is otherwise permanently incapacitated, and there is still a year or more of his term of office to run, a mayoral by-election must be held.

Amurane’s five year term of office began in February 2014, when he was sworn in. At the time of his assassination, his term still had more than 15 months to run. In the period before a by-election, an interim mayor is only authorised to undertake “acts of day-to-day management”, the Nampula prosecutors pointed out.

Tocova, however, cited in Tuesday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Mediafax”, claimed that his acts are perfectly legal. The lawyers hired by the Municipal Council, he said, “are working to reply, in due time, to the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office”.

But on Monday there was no response to the letter from the public prosecutor, simply a ceremony swearing in the officials appointed by Tocova. He claimed he had no alternative but to swear them in, in order to meet the needs of Nampula citizens. When reporters tried to question him, he refused to speak to them, claiming that he had a busy agenda.

The officials who took office on Monday are, like both Amurane and Tocova, mostly members of the opposition Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM). Some of them had been sacked by Amurane for alleged acts of corruption and theft of municipal revenue.

Amurane’s strong stance against corruption seemed to earn him enemies in the MDM. He publicly accused the MDM leadership of wanting him to divert municipal funds for party purposes.

Although he never resigned from the MDM or from its Political Commission, Amurane stopped attending meetings, and announced he would stand for a second term of office – but not as an MDM candidate.

Tocova’s behaviour lays him wide open to criminal charges.

Source: AIM