Edson Cortez: Group interests may delay sovereign wealth fund in Mozambique

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Edson Cortez: Group interests may delay sovereign wealth fund in Mozambique

3:19 CAT | 15 Jul 2020

Maputo view. [File photo: Lusa]

Social researcher Edson Cortez said on Monday that the creation of a sovereign wealth fund in the country may be being delayed by interests of groups linked to power which would not benefit from that model of wealth creation in the country.

“The group that is in control of power at the moment may have no interest” in the creation of a fund, which would serve for future investments in the country, instead of benefiting, now and directly, specific interests, Cortez said, without elaborating.

The Mozambican activist, executive director of the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), a non-governmental organisation dedicated to transparency in the public sector, was speaking at a webinar on the political economy of natural resources in Mozambique.

The idea of a sovereign wealth fund has been debated in the country and, in April, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Adriano Maleiane, defended a consensus around the creation of a fund fed by revenues from natural resources and aimed at the construction of infrastructure essential to the country’s development.

Natural resources, like the natural gas that will be extracted from 2024 on in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.

Edson Cortez said that the way that elites try to create income from these resources “does not guarantee long-term sustainability, and opens space for tensions and frictions” such as are now being seen.

Cabo Delgado has been under attack for two and a half years by insurgents classified by Mozambican and international authorities as a terrorist threat.

The violence has caused the death of at least 700 people, in addition to a humanitarian crisis affecting 250,000 people.

“In the centre of Mozambique we have another conflict that causes death and material damage. These are [conflicts] derived from a wealth accumulation system that excludes a large part of the population and benefits those who are in power,” Cortez concludes.

Source: Lusa