Mozambique: PM promises improvements in financial management – Watch

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Mozambique: PM promises improvements in financial management – Watch

6:39 CAT | 25 Mar 2021

Photo: TVM

Mozambican Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario on Thursday pledged that the government “will continue to consolidate and improve the mechanisms which ensure observance of the principles of economy, efficiency, transparency and accountability in the management of public assets”.

He was speaking in Maputo at the closing session of a debate in the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, on the General State Account (CGE) of 2019.

The CGE is drawn up by the government after the end of the financial year concerned, and is then submitted to the Administrative Tribunal, the body responsible for overseeing the legality of public expenditure. The Tribunal then sends its report and comments on the CGE to the Assembly.

The debate has become entirely predictable and formulaic. Every year, the Administrative Tribunal criticises the CGE for various shortcomings, and every year the opposition parties say that the Tribunal’s report is evidence of government misconduct or corruption, and call for rejection of the CGE.

Equally predictable is the response from the ruling Frelimo Party, which says the CGE proves the government did indeed implement the budget passed by the Assembly. Frelimo deputies argue that the CGE shows the government is carrying out its programme, but accepts that there have been failings. It claims that the CGE is improving, year after year, and that, since the account is in accordance with the law, it should be accepted.

Rosario assured the deputies that the government will implement new measures in the state financial management system, to improve the mechanisms for registering and accounting for state revenue and expenditure.

It will strengthen the capacity to check the procedures used in budgetary execution “through improving the internal control systems in public institutions at all levels”, he said.

Each institution, Rosario stressed, should assess its compliance with the targets laid down in the annual economic and social plan and the state budget, and with the norms of financial and administrative management.

Institutions must also look into any illegalities or irregularities in the use of public resources and inform “the relevant bodies” (which would normally be the Public Prosecutor’s Office) so that appropriate measures can be taken. Rosario promised “disciplinary measures against those who violate previously established norms”.

Turning to the mining industry, the Prime Minister said “we shall continue regular audits to confirm the recoverable costs declared by the companies operating in the sector”. Such regular audits would determine how much tax the companies should really be paying.

Rosario added that the government is committed to measures that will broaden the taxation base, and one step in that direction is the introduction, as from last Monday, of mobile tax collection posts in all the provincial delegations of the Mozambican Tax Authority (AT).

Projects that exploit the country’s natural resources, he said, must bring benefits to local communities in terms of job opportunities, income generation and links with small and medium enterprises. He promised that the government will work to ensure that the percentage owing to local communities from natural resource exploitation is transferred to them in good time.

Rosario declared that the government “is determined to prevent and combat all forms of corruption, which is a damaging phenomenon which blocks all efforts to improve the provision of services to the public, and thus holds back economic and social development”.

“We shall continue to promote the culture of integrity in the public administration”, he said, “and continue to strengthen and modernise the capacity of public institutions in good practices of managing public assets”.

What the government wanted, Rosario stressed, was “to build a public administration guided by respect by the highest ethical values, of morality and legality, centred on providing citizens with a good service”.