Governors and Secretaries of State may not take key decisions – Mozambique

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Governors and Secretaries of State may not take key decisions – Mozambique

8:25 CAT | 31 Jan 2020

Provincial Governors (top photo) were sworn in on January 22, the Secretaries of State (bottom photo) on January 24. [File photos: O País]

The separation of powers between Mozambique’s new provincial governors and the Secretaries of State in each province is so unclear that the central government has stepped in to order temporary limitations on the decisions that both governors and Secretaries of State can take, until there has been a firm clarification of their roles, and of how governmental resources in the provinces are to be divided between them.

The Council of Ministers (Cabinet) has set up an inter-ministerial commission to decide on the division of resources between the governors and the Secretaries of State.

This commission is headed by the Minister of State Administration, Ana Comoana, and also includes the Ministers of Economy and Finance, Adriano Maleiane, of Public Works, Joao Machatine, of the Interior, Amade Miquidade, and of Justice, Helena Kida.

The commission will define the terms for sharing out human and financial resources and other assets that used to belong to the provincial governments between “the decentralised bodies of governance (i.e. the directly elected provincial governors), and the representation of the State in the province (i.e. the Secretaries of State)”.

Until the Commission has completed its work, the Secretaries of State and the provincial governors “must not take structuring decisions”.

This ban will be lifted when the structures of two new bodies, the Council of State Representation in the province and the Provincial Executive Council, have been decided.

Source: AIM