“IMF sanctions should focus on Government without affecting population” – OTM

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“IMF sanctions should focus on Government without affecting population” – OTM

12:30 CAT | 11 Dec 2017

The Workers’ Organisation of Mozambique (OTM-CS) has held a meeting with the International Monetary Fund, at which it said that the economic blockade imposed by this institution and other cooperation partners was making the lives of the population worse.

The OTM-CS argues that the decision of cooperation partners to suspend financial support to the country should affect only the government, not the population, and expressed its position on Friday during a meeting with an IMF team visiting the country at its headquarters in Maputo.

“OTM-CS argues that the blockade established by the IMF and other cooperation partners must end because, far from punishing the Mozambican government, it is effectively punishing the people, whose living conditions deteriorate day by day. The Mozambican people who suffer from this blockade do not even understand the concept of hidden debts,” the document presented by OTM-CS secretary-general Alexandre Munguambe to the IMF team reads.

The IMF team is in the country for routine oversight. Last year, international donors decided to suspend direct support to the state budget, resumption off which is now conditional on full disclosure of the Kroll Associates independent international audit report on Ematum, Proindicus and Mozambique Assets Management (MAM), which contracted state-guaranteed loans in 2013 and 2014.

As a contribution to improving the current economic and social scenario of “great uncertainty”, and given that Mozambicans live in an environment of insecurity regarding the future, OTM-CS suggests that the government should effectively assume that agriculture is the key factor in development and the fight against poverty.

To this end, according to the OTM-CS, the government should create incentives for the development of business and family agriculture, as well as the promotion of agro-industries with the capacity to take advantage of surplus production. The OTM-CS also stresses the need to strengthen public management mechanisms, as well as to carry out a determined fight against corruption and the looting of natural resources, especially wood.