Mozambique: Ukraine opens embassy in Maputo
TVM / President Filipe Nyusi
Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Saturday ended a three day working visit to the western province of Tete, with a recommendation that the local authorities should continue to boost agricultural marketing.
Speaking at a press conference in Tete city, Nyusi said that in all the districts he had visited he had noted high levels of agricultural production.
“Overall production has grown more than was forecast”, he said. “The level of tax revenue has also grown, albeit timidly, throughout the country”.
Although the indicators were generally positive, there was more to be done, particularly to ensure greater dynamism in agricultural marketing, in response to the levels of production.
“We have to be firm to guarantee marketing”, Nyusi stressed, “because the production exists, and from what we have seen there are no great incapacities preventing us from selling the crops. It’s a question of organisation or of coordination”.
Since Tete had never produced so much before, the President added, “naturally this coordination for marketing is going to cost”.
To illustrate the need for coordination, Nyusi pointed to Kassuende locality in Maravia district, where peasant farmers have produced surplus maize that they need to sell – yet the local processing plant is complaining of a lack of maize.
Nyusi called for clarity in the marketing chain so that the interests of farmers are not damaged. The price for which crops are sold must compensate for the costs of production, he stressed.
Nyusi denounced the phenomenon of buildings left unfinished (particularly schools and health units), because the contractors abandoned the jobs. The main causes of this, he said, were poorly designed tenders, underestimates of the cost of jobs, “and, in some cases, corruption”.
“I am leaving the recommendation, with some stringency, that all sectors must work to fight against corruption”, he declared.
Nyusi urged the Tete provincial government to enhance the inspection of forestry resources, and of fishing on the province’s rivers and lakes, since these were important resources for raising tax revenue.
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