Mozambique: Ruling party accuses opposition party of “amnesia and hypocrisy”

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Mozambique: Ruling party accuses opposition party of “amnesia and hypocrisy”

3:01 CAT | 22 Apr 2022

File photo: DW

The Mozambican Liberation Front (Frelimo) and Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) parliamentary benches exchange accusations about the state in which the country finds itself, during a questions-to-government session.

Frelimo, the ruling party in Mozambique, on Thursday (21-04) accused the opposition, Renamo, of “amnesia and hypocrisy” in relation to the “16-year war of destruction” which they say the armed wing of the main opposition party waged, blaming it for the country’s economic and social backwardness.

“Whenever Renamo comes to this People’s House [parliament] to talk about infrastructure, their amnesia gets worse and their hypocrisy increases,” said Renamo deputy Momade Juízo.

Juízo was replying to a question from the Renamo bench about the scarcity of social and economic infrastructure in the country, 47 years after independence.

Accusations

Juizo accused the main opposition party of being responsible for the social and economic backwardness in which the country finds itself, having waged “a war of destruction” for the 16 years of the Mozambican civil war, between 1976 and 1992.

“In the 47 years of independence, we must honestly subtract 16 years of the destruction of infrastructure, of sabotage, of schools burned, hospitals vandalised and bridges destroyed, even the death of innocent people,” he declared, in a session in which the government was often a spectator in the face of tensions between Frelimo and Renamo.

Venâncio Mondlane, deputy and rapporteur for the bench of the largest opposition party, accused the government of ignoring the opposition’s questions, choosing rather to “embark on a soiree of poetry”.

“The government did not respond to anything. [All we saw here was] a round of emptiness and evasions,” Mondlane declared.

Mondlane.dw_ — *FILE – Venâncio Mondlane. [File photo: DW]*

“Philosophical presentation”

The opposition deputy accused the executive of offering a “philosophical presentation” about its state business sector restructuring strategy, avoiding answering questions about the financial and ownership structure of the productive units it controls, any gains from the disposal of assets and the fate of the workers.

The Mozambican Democratic Movement (MDM), the third-largest parliamentary party, also accused the government of failing to provide essential public services, agreeing that the government had failed to respond to questions raised by the opposition.

“The main reason for the existence of a government is to satisfy the basic needs of populations, with the most needy being the focus of public policies and all government action. What we hear, see and feel is that this does not happen,” the MDM’s Silvério Ronguane said.

Ronguane.dw_ — *FILE -Silvério Ronguane. [File photo: DW]*

The Assembly of the Republic yesterday finished the session of questions to the government with acrimonious verbal confrontations between the two main Mozambican parties and laudatory speeches to their respective leaders, the ministers present often reduced to simply watching the exchange of accusations.

Source: Deutsche Welle