Natural resources belong to all Mozambicans – Nyusi

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Natural resources belong to all Mozambicans – Nyusi

8:02 CAT | 10 May 2017

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Mozambique’s natural resources belong to all Mozambicans, and not merely to the residents of those places where they are found, declared President Filipe Nyusi on Saturday.

Speaking at a rally in the Namanhumbir administrative post, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, Nyusi criticized those who try to prevent Mozambican or foreign companies from exploiting resources on the grounds that “they belong to us”.

He said that natural resources are assets of all Mozambicans and constitute factors of national unity. The exploitation of those resources by licensed companies, he added, allows the State to raise income from taxation, and that money is then used to develop the country, and for the welfare of the entire Mozambican people.

Namanhumbir contains the largest known deposit of rubies in the world, exploited by the company Montepuez Ruby Mining Ltd, which is 75 per cent owned by the British company Gemfields. Nyusi on Saturday inaugurated the company’s ruby processing plant.

“Some people say ‘the rubies belong to us’”, remarked Nyusi. By that same logic the electricity generated by the Cahora Bassa dam on the Zambezi river, should belong to the people living in the dam town of Songo, “but everywhere we go, people say they want Cahora Bassa power. Even here they want Cahora Bassa power – but they say “the rubies belong to us!”. What is this?”

Before Montepuez Ruby Mining started work, the rubies were looted by illegal, artisanal miners, many of them foreigners, who paid no taxes. There have been violent confrontations between the police and the illegal miners, but the chairperson of the company, Samora Machel Junior (son of the country’s first president), told reporters that the problem has now been brought under control.

“We must know how to coexist with companies”, said Nyusi. “Recently I visited Botswana and there they exploit diamonds. There is coexistence, there is no conflict between the companies and the population”.

In Cabo Delgado, last year mining companies paid the equivalent of 43 million US dollars in taxes, which was money the government used to develop the country. “That’s why we’re mobilizing more investment”, said Nyusi.

As for foreign miners looting the country’s mineral resources, Nyusi said this could not be tolerated. That did not mean that Mozambique was expelling people merely because they are foreigners.

“Mozambique is not chasing any foreigners away”, he said. “Indeed in Marretane (in the neighbouring province of Nampula) we have a centre for refugees where we welcome these foreigners. They live alongside our families, and they are our friends. Why do the ones here, in Namanhumbir, live in hiding?”

Foreigners who wanted to live and work in Mozambique should do so in obedience to Mozambican laws, he insisted.

The processing equipment inaugurated on Saturday cost 4.5 million dollars, said Machel. It would allow rubies to be processed on the spot to the high standards of quality demanded by the international market.

Source: AIM