Mozambique: Competitiveness crisis and need for reforms highlighted at UEM symposium – Watch

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Mozambique: Competitiveness crisis and need for reforms highlighted at UEM symposium – Watch

5:03 CAT | 31 Oct 2025

Photo: O País

Former Governor of the Bank of Mozambique, Prakash Ratilal, says Mozambique does not have any national company that is competitive in price and quality, while Joaquim Carvalho states that the hidden debts scandals reveal a loss of values by Mozambicans and Edson Macuácua urges reforms in the higher education model.

“Four thousand and five hundred graduates in economics, and yet the country is still searching for its direction?” It was with these words that former Governor of the Bank of Mozambique, Prakash Ratilal, addressed the students at the symposium of the Faculty of Economics of Eduardo Mondlane University, appealing to national awareness.

“As we go along, the point is: where is the national within the economy? We do not have a national company that is competitive in price and quality. What is it that we lack? What, despite the various graduates – at this moment 4,500, 300 masters in economics, 8 PhDs in economics – must be done?” Ratilal asked.

Ratilal was not speaking only of numbers; he also spoke of an economy that, according to him, has still not found its axis. “Let us compete in price and quality. And this is the great challenge. At this present moment, there is a consultation underway regarding the Development Bank. It is the first time that Mozambique will have its own funds, increasingly growing with the development of the sports industry. If we do not take these additional resources and introduce them into the endogenous economy for the development of national projects by small and medium-sized enterprises, we will not get there,” he stated.

But Ratilal’s warning did not arise in isolation. Before him, the Secretary of State for Higher Education, Edson Macuácua, made an appeal to the university itself.

“However, after 50 years, it seems to us that it is time to reflect on our higher education model. Most of the courses taught at Eduardo Mondlane University – and not only there – have a structure, a model conceived in the context of the economic order of the First Republic. They are courses mostly designed to prepare staff to feed the public administration, the state administration. And sometimes it is embarrassing that in a graduation ceremony a speech appealing to entrepreneurship is made, when all the training was directed towards preparing students to be officials, employees of the state,” Macuácua said.

His criticism was echoed in the words of the former Minister of Agriculture and Foreign Trade, Joaquim de Carvalho, who lamented the loss of Mozambican moral and civic values.

“With the loss of values, society thinks that anything goes. Obviously, the hidden debts scandal, which I have been making public, involving people who held high-level positions, had a great effect on the image of the country, both at the external level and the internal level. The image of the country was very shaken,” he lamented.

The three speakers were addressing the contribution of the Faculty of Economics of Eduardo Mondlane University to the development of national economic thought, highlighting the main challenges and prospects for the future.