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Map of Mozambique with Provinces. [Image: DW]
The Mozambican non-governmental organisation (NGO) Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) warned on Monday of the risk of centralisation of the state in the proposal to revise the framework law on local authorities, calling for a broader debate on the document.
The CDD said in an analysis of the proposal, which is being debated in parliament, that “the parliamentary opposition considers that the government’s proposal aims to strengthen the control of central level political power over local authorities”.
The NGO expresses concern over the provisions contained in the document, in a context where “the government is not fully complying with the provisions of the current law on local authorities, such as the transfer of responsibilities”.
“Twenty-five years after the establishment of local authorities, the government continues to centralise various powers of state bodies. According to the law, the transfer of primary health and education services should be accompanied by the corresponding transfer of financial, human and property resources,” the text said, citing Fernando Bismarque, MP for the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM).
It has been 16 years since the government published a decree in which it committed itself to completely transferring powers of state bodies to municipalities within a period of three years, but it has failed to meet this objective, the NGO noted.
“It is the government itself that is not fulfilling the decree it produced, with a commitment assumed before the community and all the living forces of this country”, reads the document.
The CDD believes that there are three important aspects that deserve to be discussed and analysed before the approval of the proposed revision of the framework law for local authorities.
Firstly, the proposed revision “covertly” strengthens the control of central political power over local authorities. Secondly, it weakens the legal assumptions of financial, administrative and patrimonial autonomy.
Thirdly, it undermines the national interests reached by consensus between the government and the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) as part of the one-off revision of the Constitution in 2018 and the decentralisation reforms approved in subsequent years, CDD adds.
On Thursday, the Minister of State Administration and Civil Service, Ana Comoane, defended in Parliament a law on municipalities that, in her view, ensures the strengthening of transparency in the management of public resources and the clarification of responsibilities between powers.
The “strengthening of measures of good municipal management, through the promotion of transparency and publication of administrative acts and the management of public things,” is one of the aims of the proposal, Comoane said.
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The exercise also aims to clarify the attributions and responsibilities of the municipal bodies in their relationship with other decentralised entities at provincial level, in the management of basic services such as health, education and sanitation.
The aims of the document include deepening the principles and rules that guide the creation and shutdown of local authorities, as well as clarifying the procedures related to absences and impediments of local authority office holders, the Minister added.
“The current proposal is related to the need to deepen, improve and standardise the legal framework on structural matters of organisation and operation of local authorities, in order to better pursue the ultimate interest, which is the growing improvement of services provided to citizens,” said Comoane.
Comoane pointed out that the proposal was drafted based on a broad public debate across the country.
The three benches of the Mozambican parliament, namely the ruling Frelimo (Mozambique Liberation Front), Renamo, the main opposition party, and the third MDM party, asked for time to analyse the proposed revision of the law, leading to the postponement of its approval, at first reading and then in committee stage.
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PARLIAMENT POSTPONES DEBATE
The proposed revision of the Local Authorities Framework Law must go to public consultation to avoid risks of centralization
Read more:https://t.co/jJvWZec0nV pic.twitter.com/z1Q3W2FsTg
— CDD – Centro para Democracia e Desenvolvimento (@CDD_Moz) April 17, 2022
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