Entrepreneurs call for more effective action in face of attacks and kidnappings in Mozambique

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Entrepreneurs call for more effective action in face of attacks and kidnappings in Mozambique

5:45 CAT | 14 Jul 2020

File photo: Lusa

Mozambican businesspeople approached by Lusa yesterday called for “more effective” action on the attacks and kidnappings in the country, complaining that those responsible enjoyed “high levels of impunity”.

“The country is experiencing a trivialisation of attacks,” and people shot “with a very high level of impunity”, Fernando Lima, chairperson of media sector company Mediacoop told Lusa.

Fernando Lima was commenting on Saturday’s attack on Agostinho Vuma, president of the Confederation of Economic Associations of Mozambique (CTA), the country’s largest employers’ representative.

The country must have “a more effective and efficient police”, he added, to put an end to the attacks and kidnappings.

Hotel sector businessman Rui Monteiro said that the attack on Agostinho Vuma had “shocked” all entrepreneurs, and that there was a growing feeling of insecurity.

“This is an outrageous attack, and we, as businesspeople, ask the government to take action,” Monteiro said, highlighting the need to address the insecurity that the Covid-19 crisis, in his opinion, had only made worse.

Emília Naiene, a businesswoman also in the hospitality sector, agreed that apprehension among a
entrepreneurs had increased, and that the situation could reduce investment and tourism in the country.

Naiene said there were people stalking entrepreneurs just to be able “to carry out this type of barbarity”.

“We need security to be able to move and work,” she added.

According to the police, the CTA chairperson was ambushed by two armed men at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday in his office building on Avenida Josina Machel, near Baixa, central Maputo.

He was hit with two shots that left him injured, but was rescued immediately, the police source said, and is being treated in a hospital in the Mozambican capital.

Agostinho Vuma, 44, was elected chairperson of the CTA in May, 2017.

He is a founding member of the Association of Contractors of the City of Maputo, of which he was president, and was later involved the setting up of the Mozambican Federation of Contractors.

He is a Frelimo deputy in the Assembly of the Republic of Mozambique, having represented the constituency of Gaza, in the south of the country, since 2015.

Source: Lusa