Mozambique: Public Works and Labour transferred to Provincial Secretaries of State

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Mozambique: Public Works and Labour transferred to Provincial Secretaries of State

5:37 CAT | 29 Jul 2020

The Mozambican government on Tuesday announced that certain key sectors of activity in the provinces will no longer answer to the provincial governors, but will instead fall under the administration of the provincial Secretaries of State.

Announcing this change to reporters at the end of the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers (Cabinet), the government spokesperson, the Deputy Justice Minister Filimao Suaze, said the provincial directorates of public works and of labour will be transformed into delegations subordinate to the Secretary of State in each province.

The provincial directorates of health and of veterans’ affairs will be downgraded to the status of provincial services.

Suaze added that two new provincial directorates have been set up – the Directorate of Gender Children and Social Welfare, and the Directorate of Youth, Employment and Sport.

Suaze claimed these changes arise “in the framework of the norms of organisation, powers and operations of the executive bodies of the provincial decentralised governance”. They sought “to give greater dynamism and more focused treatment to these sectors”.

He said that “a continual process of decentralised legal reform” is under way. When the government considered that a service could perform better in one sector than in another “then we shall make these legislative changes, but always seeking to ensure that services are provided to citizens with ever greater effectiveness and efficiency”.

The changes remove some areas from the elected provincial governors and give them instead to the Secretaries of State who were all appointed by the President of the Republic.

The introduction last year of the post of Secretary of State was justified as part of the decentralisation package negotiated between President Filipe Nyusi and the late Afonso Dhlakama, leader of the main opposition party, Renamo. That package met Renamo’s demand for the direct election of provincial governors, but also introduced the figure of Secretary of State who was supposed to represent the central government in the province.

The 2019 law on the Representation of the State in the provinces says that the central state is represented in the provinces and in Maputo City by a Secretary of State, who exercises the functions that are exclusive to the State and to state sovereignty.

The Secretary of State is tasked with organising state services not only in the province, but also in the districts. He or she heads the “Council of services of State provincial representation”, which also includes the directors of the provincial services of the State, and delegates who represent public institutions in the province.

Moving public works and labour matters to the administration of the Secretaries of State substantially increases their responsibilities.

Source: AIM