Mozambican government rejects defence and security spending accusations

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Mozambican government rejects defence and security spending accusations

8:19 CAT | 11 Dec 2015

Lusa Moçambique / Minister of Economy and Finance, Adriano Maleiane.

Speaking in parliament yesterday, Minister of Economy and Finance Adriano Maleiane rejected accusations that the government intends to spend more money on defense and security, to the detriment of the social sector.

According to Maleiane, only 8.5 percent of the 2016 State Budget will be allocated to defense and security, against 22.1 percent of spending on education, 10 percent on health, 13.8 percent for roads and bridges and 9.6 percent for agriculture and rural development.

Regarding the Presidency, the target of opposition criticism about alleged state profligacy, the Minister of Economy and Finance stated that only 0.6 percent of the state budget will be allocated to the office of head of state, Filipe Nyusi.

During the debate, Renamo, the main opposition party, accused the government of channeling more resources to the ministries of Defense and Interior, Intelligence Services and State Security (SISE) and the Presidency.

“The people want clean water, not AK-47s,” said Renamo’s PM Lucia Afate.

In a meeting that he recently held with the Mozambican Debt Group, the finance minister said that the accusations stem from a partial reading of the budget.

Maleiane said that some analyses of the budget were limited to identifying the funds for the central organs of the state rather than assessing the resources channeled to the autonomous organs of state administration, and did not take into account the autonomy and financial decentralization underway in the country.

During the presentation of the budget in parliament, the minister said that Mozambique will be affected by the slowdown in China and the stagnation of the Indian economy, which will reduce the demand for raw materials.

“In 2016, economic and social activity in our country will be influenced by external factors associated with the global economic growth outlook,” he said.

The Economic and Social plan and the State Budget that the government presented yesterday in parliament revise economic growth downwards from 7.8 to 7 percent, a loss of 246,000 million meticais (EUR 4.4 billion).

The Minister of Economy and Finance attributed the revision to the continuing fall in the price of raw materials in international markets and the depreciation of the metical against the dollar, adding that the average annual rate of inflation would be 5.6 percent and deficit would be 10.2 percent of GDP.

Of the 2016 state budget,74.8 percent will be funded by internal resources and 25.2 percent by foreign funds, of which 40 percent will be grants and 60 percent credit, Maleiane explained.

Source: Lusa Moçambique