Interview: First pandemic in Mozambique was hidden debts scandal – Quelimane mayor

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Interview: First pandemic in Mozambique was hidden debts scandal – Quelimane mayor

3:06 CAT | 24 Jun 2022

File photo: CanalMoz

The mayor of Quelimane, Manuel de Araújo, told Lusa on Wednesday that the first pandemic Mozambique faced was the scandal of the hidden debts, whose effects will be felt for “another two or three years”.

“We have had challenges because of Covid-19, we had many adversities and difficulties because of the pandemic, it was difficult to make partnerships, but Covid-19 was the second pandemic, the first was the hidden debts, which greatly affected the way the world sees Mozambique,” Manuel de Araújo said in an interview with Lusa in Carcavelos, on the outskirts of Lisbon.

“The cooperation partners still have some difficulties in designing medium and small partnerships, unlike the large gas and mining multinationals, which do not care about the image of the country, in fact the large multinationals never stopped investing in Nigeria and South Africa even during the ‘apartheid’ [racial segregation] period, but the small and medium-sized enterprises are very sensitive and we, in local government, face many difficulties and feel the impact of the hidden debts because the cooperation partners stopped supporting the budget,” he said.

Manuel de Araújo was speaking on the sidelines of his participation in the Novafrica 2022 Conference on Economic Development, in Carcavelos, municipality of Cascais.

For the mayor of Quelimane, the suspension of budget aid given by international institutions and donors, following the disclosure, in April 2016, of debts of public companies contracted with the State’s guarantee, but without internal or external disclosure, amounting to over US$1 billion, greatly affected municipalities.

“The state budget, without an external component, was much reduced and the poor relative in the distribution of what little there was, were the local authorities, so we suffered the effects of the hidden debts in two ways and, as if that were not enough, we still had two years of covid,” lamented the mayor.

Asked whether the distrust in the country is now over, six years after the first report on the loans, published in April 2016 by the Wall Street Journal, Manuel de Araújo said no.

“The cooperation partners haven’t overcome it yet, it’s a process, it’s only now that the World Bank has accepted to come back, a month ago, and that’s going to have a positive effect, but for that to come down to the level of small and medium-sized enterprises, it’s going to take one or two or three years,” said the mayor, for whom the situation in Cabo Delgado also acts as a constraint to investment in the country.

“I have in Quelimane some businesspeople with businesses in Cabo Delgado province who have returned and abandoned investments, for example in restaurants and services, especially now, with this latest attack in Metoro, 50 kilometres from Pemba, a city where you need a military convoy to get in and out,” he said.

READ: Agreement with Nova allows data-based governance – Mayor of Quelimane

Considering that Mozambique is a country that is very visible in the media because of its entry to the United Nations Security Council as a non-permanent member, its large gas reserves and the announcement by Tesla of its interest in the country’s graphite, Manuel de Araújo conceded that this boosts terrorist activity.

“This makes Mozambique much more appetizing for attacks of terrorist ideology. The country was not prepared, one must realise that an attack in Mozambique today has greater news coverage than before because it is in the Security Council and Tesla, the company of the future, has said it wants to buy the country’s graphite,” Manuel de Araújo said.

“The budget to support terrorists will increase and so will the level of attacks. This week there was the first attack in Nampula, and with that there are already three provinces affected, Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Nampula, now,” he concluded.

Source: Lusa