Nyusi meets with Nampula businesses in Mossuril – Mozambique

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Nyusi meets with Nampula businesses in Mossuril – Mozambique

7:20 CAT | 16 May 2017

Rádio Moçambique (File photo) / President Filipe Nyusi

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Friday urged all Mozambican business people to set up “multi-faceted companies” to attend to the requirements of all kinds of clients, and to stop relying on the State as the main consumer of their services.

Speaking in Mossuril district, at a meeting with business people from across the northern province of Nampula, Nyusi stressed that businesses should pay attention to the demands of the market economy, so that they could better face day-to-day challenges.

Investors, he continued, needed to create capacity to compete on the market, since the idea of involving the private sector as a partner in the economic development of the country was precisely to lighten the burden falling on the State.

“You have to create business and commercial muscle, banking on good quality services, and bearing in mind that the market is increasingly competitive”, Nyusi urged.

The economic management of a country, he continued, could not rely on the State handing out subsidies. He once again attacked the generalized fuel subsidy, inherited from the previous government, and which was in force until recently.

“It is not tolerable that Mozambique charges the lowest fuel prices in southern Africa, when we all buy fuel from the same suppliers”, he said. “This allows operators from beyond our borders to purchase fuel in our country. Mozambique must charge the real fuel price so as not to subsidise the economies of other countries”.

He was referring to the practice of motorists from neighbouring countries, particularly Zimbabwe, crossing into Mozambique to buy cheap fuel. A racket has sprung up whereby Zimbabweans buy truckloads of fuel in Mozambique and then resell it at much higher prices in their own country.

Businessmen who spoke at the meeting complained at the State’s delay in paying its bills for the services they provide.

Nyusi admitted this was a real problem, but blamed it on the fact that Mozambique can no longer rely on foreign aid. All 14 donors who used to provide direct support to the Mozambican state budget suspended further disbursements, when the scandal of hidden debts, to the tune of more than 1.1 billion dollars, guaranteed illegally by the former government, came to light in April 2016.

“Our priority is the payment of wages, hence the delay in paying for services”, said the President. He promised to take full note of this and other problems presented at the meeting for deeper consideration later.

Source: AIM