Mozambique’s “decentralisation package” and why it needs deepening and improvement, according to CDD

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Mozambique’s “decentralisation package” and why it needs deepening and improvement, according to CDD

12:26 CAT | 11 Aug 2020

File photo: Lusa

The Centre for Democracy and Development, a Mozambique non-governmental organisation (NGO), warns of contradictions in the country’s decentralisation process and argues that it still needs technical improvements.

“The speed with which the process was conducted to make the October 2019 general elections feasible also contributed to the imperfections contained in legal acts, including some unnecessary contradictions and repetitions,” a document distributed to the media reads.

The 2018 constitutional review, which resulted from negotiations aimed at lasting peace between the Frelimo government and the Renamo opposition, established decentralised governance by means of a “decentralisation package” aimed at deepening democracy, local development and service delivery.

The agreement accommodated Renamo’s aspiration to elect governors in some provinces, but it also included a Frelimo condition that the central power appoint provincial secretaries of state with different powers, thus offsetting possible regional victories for the opposition party.

The NGO says that one of the “critical issues” has to do with the distribution of competencies between the decentralised provincial governance bodies and those representing the state in the province.

“The figure of the [provincial] Secretary of State has functions that go far beyond those defined as being sovereign,” it adds.

In addition to a lack of harmony between some of the provisions in the legal acts and the constitutional text, the Constitution of the Republic itself contains articles with similar content, the organisation also notes.

Renamo did not secure a majority in any province in last October’s general elections, and Frelimo, by virtue of having won both the presidential and legislative elections, not only elected all the governors, but also appointed the secretaries of state who accompany them.

Source: Lusa