Niassa: Corruption alleged in handling district fund – AIM

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Niassa: Corruption alleged in handling district fund – AIM

7:07 CAT | 30 Jun 2017

Beneficiaries of the District Development Fund (FDD) in Ngauma district, in the northern province of Niassa, have claimed that corruption in the local Consultative Councils is the reason why so little of the money lent by the FDD has been repaid.

According to a report in Thursday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”, of the 82 million meticais (about 1.37 million dollars, at current exchange rate) lent from the FDD in Ngauma, only a little more than seven million meticais has been recovered.

This story of low FDD repayment rates is repeated across the country. The FDD started life in 2006, as an allocation from the state budget of seven million meticais a year to each district, which would be lent to people who proposed viable projects to raise revenue, boost food production and create jobs. The task of the Consultative Councils was to assess the proposals.

The FDD was to be a revolving fund – that is, as the money was repaid, so it would be lent out again to other beneficiaries. But repayment rates have been so low, that this became impossible. The FDD is thus just a drain on the state budget.

In Ngauma, some beneficiaries claimed that members of the Consultative Councils gave preferential access to FDD funds to their friends or relatives. In some cases corrupt members of the Councils demanded a share of the money for themselves.

To obtain a loan from the FDD, candidates had to pay large sums to these Council members. It is alleged that this is why the beneficiaries were unable to repay.

The beneficiaries raised these complaints at a meeting with the Niassa Provincial Governor, Arlindo Chilundo. The governor said he was disappointed with what he had heard, and promised to investigate so that criminal proceedings could be started against anyone found to have acted corruptly.

Chilundo reminded the beneficiaries and the members of the Councils that the State’s money belongs to all citizens. He warned that those who raided state resources would be punished, including those who invented “ghost beneficiaries” to take money from the FDD.

Chilundo also told the Ngauma district government to draw up strategies to recover the money that is in the hands of “dishonest beneficiaries”.

At a similar meeting in Mandimba district, Chilundo was told that 70 FDD beneficiaries cannot repay because they have died. Clearly the governor was suspicious of this information, since he ordered the local government to ascertain the truth through death certificates for the supposedly deceased beneficiaries.

Source: AIM