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The Mozambican government foresees spending an additional €26 million next year on the payment of military pensions compared to the budget for 2023, as a result of updates and implementation of the minimum pension standard.
According to the document supporting the proposed law for the Economic and Social Plan and State Budget (PESOE) for 2024, under general discussion today and tomorrow in the Assembly of the Republic, the government projects “the increase of around 1.8 billion meticais [€26 million] in relation to the year 2023, in expenses with military pensions”.
This amount results from the “updating of Military Disability Pensions, the implementation of the Minimum Pension and the general improvement of Pensions”, the document reads.
In the budget proposal for next year, the government globally foresees, for pensions, 28,343 million meticais (€410.6 million), equivalent to 1.8% of the gross domestic product (GDP). For 2023, 19,301 million meticais (€279.6 million) was budgeted for pensions, the equivalent to 1.5% of GDP.
“In addition to the conclusion and inclusion of pensioners in the DDR [Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration of former Renamo guerrilla fighters] process, the State’s participation as an employer in the payment of pensions is expected to begin in 2024”, the same statement states.
President of Mozambique Filipe Nyusi said on November 29 that 645 of the more than 5,200 former Renamo guerrillas covered by the DDR process have already started receiving pensions, criticising those who try to “misinform”.
“To date, 645 DDR beneficiaries have already started receiving their pensions. Those who said that this would not happen, continue to say that, but things are on the ground,” Filipe Nyusi said recently in Maputo at the opening of the Ministry of the Interior consultative council.
The statement came after public criticism from former guerrillas and commanders of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo, the largest opposition party) regarding alleged delays and problems in the attribution of these pensions, agreed with the government in the DDR process.
“The DDR process continues to be at the forefront of our attention (…) There is a lot of effort not to help these people understand and some people are keen to take advantage of it to the detriment of the lives of others,” the head of state said.
The “updates” made to the number of pensions allocated, explained Nyusi, came “precisely so that people don’t become uninformed”. “Or those who are uninformed become increasingly harmed, because they create confusion.”
The DDR process, which began in 2018, covers 5,221 former Renamo guerrillas, of which 257 are women, and ended last June, with the closure of the Vunduzi base, the last Renamo base, located in the district of Gorongosa, central province of Sofala.
The 1992 General Peace Agreement put an end to the 16-year war, opposing the government army and the Renamo guerrillas. It was signed in Rome, between then President Joaquim Chissano and Afonso Dhlakama, historic leader of Renamo, who died in May 2018.
In 2013, there were other clashes between the parties, which lasted 17 months and only stopped with the signing, on September 5, 2014, of the Agreement on the Cessation of Military Hostilities, between Dhlakama and the former head of state Armando Guebuza.
On August 6, 2019, the Peace and National Reconciliation Agreement was signed, the third and which is now being materialised, between the current Mozambican president, Filipe Nyusi, and the leader of Renamo, Ossufo Momade.
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