Nyusi dismisses four ministers – AIM report

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Nyusi dismisses four ministers – AIM report

9:51 CAT | 13 Dec 2017

File photo / President Filipe Nyusi

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Tuesday night relieved four members of his government of their duties – Foreign Minister Oldemiro Baloi, Agriculture Minister Jose Pacheco, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Max Tonela, and the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Leticia Klemens.

No replacements were immediately announced, and, as is normal with presidential dispatches, no reasons were given for the dismissals.

Two of the ministers dismissed had served under Nyusi’s predecessors, Joaquim Chissano and Armando Guebuza. Baloi has the longest record in central government. Under Chissano, he was Deputy Minister of Cooperation from 1990 to 1994, and then Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism from 1994 to 1999.

Guebuza brought him back into government as Foreign Minister in 2008, and Nyusi reappointed him to this post in 2015. He has also served on the Central Committee of the ruling Frelimo Party, but failed in his bid to be re-elected to the Central Committee at the party’s 11th Congress in September.

Pacheco was Deputy Minister of Agriculture under Chissano from 1995 to 1998, but then left the central government to become governor of the northern province of Cabo Delgado from 1998 to 2005.

Guebuza brought him back to the centre of power, appointing him Minister of the Interior in 2005. He held this post until 2010, when he became Minister of Agriculture. When Frelimo chose its candidate for the October 2014 presidential election, Pacheco was one of the four people who stood, but was heavily defeated by Nyusi.

Pacheco headed the government side in negotiations with the Renamo rebels in 2014, which led to the 5 September 2014 agreement signed between Guebuza and Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama. But Renamo never abided by the terms of this agreement, and refused to disarm and dismantle its militia. The Renamo insurrection resumed in late 2015, and was not halted until the phone contacts between Nyusi and Dhlakama led to a truce, declared by the Renamo leader on 27 December 2016.

Nyusi reappointed Pacheco as Agriculture Minister, when he formed his government in January 2015. But many previous functions of the Ministry were transferred to the new Ministry of Land, Environment and Rural Development, headed by Celso Correia.

Pacheco was a powerful figure in Frelimo as a member of the Political Commission, and head of the Verification Commission, the party’s disciplinary body. He lost these positions at the September Congress.

Max Tonela was appointed Minister of Industry and Trade in January 2015. He has a reputation as a skilled technocrat, and among his previous posts were those of financial director of the publicly owned electricity company, EDM, and a member of the Board of Directors of Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB), the company that operates the Cahora Bassa dam on the Zambezi river.

Businesswoman Leticia Klemens had held no previous government positions when Nyusi appointed her Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy in October 2016. The decision to move her, after only a year in the job, is perhaps the biggest surprise in this shakeup.

Source: AIM