OMR warns that state budget allocation for agriculture is insufficient – Mozambique

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OMR warns that state budget allocation for agriculture is insufficient – Mozambique

12:33 CAT | 05 Nov 2018

In file CoM

Investments made by Mozambican governments in agriculture are insufficient to ensure the sector’s development and self-sufficiency, say researchers at the Rural Observatory, a Mozambican non-governmental organisation (NGO) linked to agriculture.

In an analysis entitled “General State Budget for the Agrarian Sector and Rural Development”, João Mosca and Rabia Aiuba point out that the allocation for agriculture included in the Mozambican State Budget has always been less than 4.8% of total expenditures since 2011, with a slight increase to 6.4% expected in 2019.

“The levels of investment are insufficient to recover, in the medium term, the deficit and weaknesses in infrastructure directly associated with the agricultural sector,” the study says.

With the volume of resources allocated, it will not be possible for the state to create conditions for the sector to play its part in the country’s economy.

Mosca and Aiuba recall that the Mozambican state pledged to channel 10% of its budget to agriculture, and urge the government to work to allocate this percentage as from 2022.

“The OMR calls on political parties with a seat in parliament to demand that the government comply with this directive, because there have already been 15 years of non-compliance,” they say.

In 2010, all African Union states signed the ‘Maputo Declaration’, committing themselves to allocating 10% of their budgets to agriculture.

Source: Lusa