Mozambique: Kidnappings hold back investment – business community

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Mozambique: Kidnappings hold back investment – business community

8:08 CAT | 15 Apr 2021

File photo: Lusa

The president of the Confederation of Economic Associations of Mozambique (CTA) told Lusa on Thursday that the kidnappings of businesspeople or their relatives are hindering investment in the country, pointing to impunity as a stimulus to these crimes.

“This human hand [behind the kidnappings] that is against development sows terror and pain, mourning and creates disinvestment, gives an image of an unstable Mozambique,” Agostinho Vuma told Lusa.

Vuma said that foreign investors are giving up doing business in Mozambique because of fears of kidnapping and insecurity.

The president of CTA, the main employers’ association in Mozambique, compared the effect of kidnappings on the business environment to that of armed attacks in Cabo Delgado, pointing out that they are forms of violence that make the country uninteresting for investments.

“This wave [also resembles] what we are seeing in Palma [with armed attacks],” he said, noting that with kidnappings the most basic freedoms and needs of the human being are also limited.

Kidnappings continue in Mozambique because there is impunity and the perpetrators are rarely found.

Vuma said that the CTA had created a department linked to defence and security to make suggestions for the government on how to stem the tide of kidnappings and insecurity in general.

After a few weeks of calm, Maputo once again registered this type of crime, with the kidnapping on Sunday of an Indian national, in one of the avenues of the capital, and a Portuguese woman, 49, outside the Consulate General of Portugal in Maputo on Tuesday.

Last year, the Mozambican authorities recorded over 10 kidnappings involving businessmen or their relatives.

Source: Lusa