President Nyusi says trust with the IMF needs to be restored quickly – Mozambique

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President Nyusi says trust with the IMF needs to be restored quickly – Mozambique

4:25 CAT | 06 Oct 2016

File photo / President Nyusi meets IMF managing director Christine Lagarde in Washington on September 16 2016

President Filipe Nyusi yesterday told US lawmakers that trust between his government and the IMF needs to be restored quickly, and assured them that Maputo was committed to clarifying the issue of the so-called hidden debts.

“We are working together to correct the situation with maximum transparency and openness, and this is what drives us to hope that trust will be restored very quickly,” Nyusi said during a meeting with five Republican and one Democrat senators visiting Mozambique.

According to the head of the Mozambican state, the suspension of financial assistance from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and international partners following the discovery of loans that the government failed to disclose to parliament or aid partners is negatively affecting the normal operation of some social sectors in the country.

Nyusi urged US lawmakers to persuade the US government to maintain support for basic social services, particularly in the treatment of HIV/Aids, noting that the advances the country has achieved in this area with US aid should be preserved.

The IMF, along with major international donors including the US, suspended financial aid to Mozambique following the discovery in April of state-guaranteed loans worth over EUR1 billion taken on between 2013 and 2014 to finance companies involved in maritime security and oil research and exploration operations.

Mozambique’s international development aid partners are now making the resumption of financial cooperation conditional on an international forensic audit and the holding to account of the debts’ authors.

Source: Lusa