Portugal-Mozambique relations cannot be “paralysed” because of hidden debts

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Portugal-Mozambique relations cannot be “paralysed” because of hidden debts

3:12 CAT | 06 Jul 2018

Photo: Twitter

Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa said yesterday that relations with Mozambique cannot be paralysed because the investigation into the hidden debts of the Mozambican state have not yet been completed.

“These are themes of Mozambican Justice, it is not for me to be here to comment,” said António Costa, adding that the two countries ca not be “paralysed by the past.”

“The future is there and it is at the future that we have to look,” said António Costa, responding to questions by journalists after a cocktail with about 200 Portuguese business people in Maputo during a two-day official visit.

The head of the Portuguese Government spoke with representatives of companies from various areas of trade, which he said had “resisted” the crisis in Mozambique from 2016 to the present, worsened by the State’s undeclared debts of about two billion dollars .

The fate of the money remains unclear in a scandal that has led to major foreign donors (including the Portuguese state) abandoning direct support to the state budget two years ago.

Yesterday, taking the example of the Portuguese companies in the country, António Costa defended as “absolutely essential” that Portugal maintains with Mozambique ” in relation to the level of trust that these countries have had”.

“This is what allows us to overcome previous situations in a healthy way, so that they do not repeat themselves, but also to ensure that we are not paralysed by the past,” he said.

Looking ahead to stimulating Portuguese business activities, António Costa highlighted the activation of financial instruments, such as lines of credit, “which help to unblock certain situations” of investment.

He also highlighted a “reinforcement of the strategic plan for cooperation, from 64 to 202 million Euros, it is an important contribution and we must work with companies and authorities to find solutions” for Portuguese-Mozambican economic cooperation.

“Mozambique’s message has been clear; it has appreciation for Portuguese companies and how they have managed to resist” and it reveals “ambition to turn the page, to launch a set of absolutely critical infrastructure for a more sustainable and less dependent external crisis economy, ” he said.

In the cocktail, also present was the Portuguese Social Democrat Party (PSD) deputy-president Nuno Morais Sarmento, who, however, dismissed any political-partisan reasons for his presence at the event with the Portuguese prime minister.

Sarmento pointed out that he has been doing business in Mozambique for 15 years, through his law firm, and more recently is participating in a small hotel project.

Apart from that, the Vice-President of the PSD praised António Costa’s visit, which he considered, like Minister Augusto Santos Silva, “a reading of the African reality” and welcomed that they was any “irritant” [issue] in regard to Mozambique, unlike what happened in the case of Angola.

During a cocktail party attended by about two hundred business people, in a Maputo hotel where Costa stayed, the Portuguese PM visited Maputo Port and the ‘Sociedade Industrial de Pescas’ [Industrial Fisheries Society] during the afternoon, where he had the opportunity to see how different types of seafoods, one of the main exports of the country, are preserved and packaged.

“The next time I’m in a supermarket, I will know,” said the prime minister at the end of the visit, where he even had to wear an anorak to resist the cold temperatures of the cold storage area where the crustaceans are kept.

Source: Lusa