Mozambique lacks resources to pay pensions to demobilised guerrillas

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Mozambique lacks resources to pay pensions to demobilised guerrillas

11:46 CAT | 19 Dec 2022

File photo: Lusa

The personal envoy of the United Nations Secretary General to Mozambique, Mirko Manzoni, said on Friday that “there are no resources” to pay pensions to Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) guerrillas demobilised under the 2019 peace deal.

“We cannot pay pensions without being prepared and without resources,” Manzoni told private TV channel STV from Serra da Gorongosa, in Sofala province, central Mozambique.

Mirko Manzoni said that “the issue of pensions is not easy”, and that “work is being carried out to find out how to get the resources” so that the demobilised are “integrated into the pension system”.

“It is an issue that we have been negotiating for three years. We are now in a situation where all partners are committed to seeking a solution on pensions,” the special envoy of António Guterres stressed.

Manzoni also said that the pension system for demobilised soldiers “has to be sustainable”, noting that partners can help, but “the resources must be Mozambican”.

After surrendering their weapons, the guerrillas receive a subsidy for a period of a few months and then pensions are fixed.

On Monday of last week, Renamo president Ossufo Momade, said that there was a “systematic non-compliance with the peace agreement by the Mozambican government”, noting that demobilised combatants “continue to wait for the fixing of pensions”, an issue that has been raised repeatedly.

The Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) process is part of the Peace and National Reconciliation Agreement signed on August 6, 2019, between the Mozambican head of state, Filipe Nyusi, and Renamo leader Alfonso Dhlakama.

According to Renamo, 4,001 (80%) of the planned 5,254 fighters have already been demobilised.

Source: Lusa