Mozambique: Business owners want harsher jail terms, no bail to deter kidnappers

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Mozambique: Business owners want harsher jail terms, no bail to deter kidnappers

9:09 CAT | 03 Nov 2023

in file CoM

Mozambique’s Confederation of Economic Associations (CTA), the country’s largest employers’ association, on Friday called for “harsher” prison sentences for kidnappers and “no right to bail” to curb the wave of kidnappings in the country.

“We believe that profound changes need to be made, both in the approach of the police (PRM) against this evil, as well as in the current legal framework, making its penal framework more severe and without the possibility of paying bail,” said the CTA, in a note sent to the media, in reaction to the kidnapping of a Portuguese-Mozambican woman in Maputo.

A group of three armed men kidnapped a 26-year-old woman on Wednesday morning as she was leaving her home to go to the gym along Rua Valentim Siti in the Mozambican capital, PRM spokesman Lionel Muchina told Lusa.

“We made an assessment on the ground and realised that the family has no business history,” the group of people who have mostly been the victims of kidnappings, said the spokesman.

For the businesspeople, it is necessary to rethink the approach taken by the Mozambican authorities in the fight against kidnappings, arguing that the effective implementation of the anti-kidnapping unit and other proposals submitted to the government are “the starting point for eradicating the phenomenon”.

“It is necessary to pass on the information that the state and society do not tolerate this type of crime,” the CTA added in the document, expressing “considerable concern” about the worsening problem of kidnapping in Mozambique.

Mozambican employers are also concerned about the lack of clarification about these crimes, which mainly affect businesspeople and their families, considering that the situation is fuelling the possibility of continued kidnappings in the country.

Kidnappings have an “extremely negative” effect on the economic fabric and the decision of potential investors in the country, said the business confederation, adding that the situation also makes Mozambique “unsafe for attracting tourism”.

Some Mozambican cities, especially the provincial capitals, have once again been affected by a wave of kidnappings since 2020.

Mozambique’s prime minister, Adriano Maleiane, said in parliament in May that the officers who will work in the unit that will combat the kidnappings affecting the country’s main cities have already been selected.

“The first phase, which has already been finalised,” of the creation of the anti-kidnapping unit, “consisted of selecting the officers” and the next stage will be the specialisation of the staff and will count on the support of cooperation partners, he continued.

At the time, Maleiane said that since 2021 28 cases of kidnapping had been recorded in Mozambique, of which “15 have been fully resolved”.

Source: Lusa