“The government is taking all necessary steps to clarify public debt” – Filipe Nyusi

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“The government is taking all necessary steps to clarify public debt” – Filipe Nyusi

12:31 CAT | 05 Jul 2016

A Bola (File photo) / President Filipe Nyusi

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi has said that the government is taking all the necessary steps to clarify public debts taken on without the knowledge of the country’s cooperation partners, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In his first public statement on the matter after the recent visit of a technical IMF mission to Mozambique, Nyusi said on Sunday that “it is a fact that the country is in debt and the debts were not known about, but we have acknowledged that”.

Following the disclosure, his government headed to Washington to put itself at the disposal of the partners to clarify the debts, an exercise which was completed and was followed up by the recent visit of an IMF mission to the country.

Nyusi, who was speaking at the end of the visit to the city of Ndola, capital of Zambian Copperbelt province, where he inaugurated the 52nd edition of the International Fair, said that the parties are now designing measures to extricate the country from the problem, but the most important thing was to avoid despair and recrimination.

“What is wrong has to be eliminated, because no government would be interested in lack of organization or procedure,” the president said. The ideal, he added, was to let the processes flow on as intended, and, in the current case, he said, they were flowing through the goal posts .

The government had been to the Assembly of the Republic in order to clarify the outlines of the case, had accepted the proposal to create a commission of inquiry, and the Attorney General’s office had opened a case in the matter.

“Things will flow because to get to 10 you need to start from one. We can not demand that you get to 10 without starting at one. That is not how you count,” the president explained, adding that all would be accomplished in due course.

Nyusi, who gave his short visit to Zambia a positive mark, said that economic freedom is the main battle that the two countries are fighting, aiming to consolidate the regional bloc’s affirmation process and set up a new panorama in international relations.

In order to achieve this goal, the two countries had been discussing the development of common infrastructure such as roads and a “dry dock” in the port of Nacala, in Nampula province, to handle Zambia imports entering there.

The president pointed out that Mozambique’s neighbour already buys energy from Cahora Bassa hydroelectric, but its need grow all the time, and it has since March been importing electricity generated at a floating power plant anchored off the port of Nacala.

“The country is developing industrially and the energy that it has is not enough. But because we have to have the power of anticipation, we are developing a joint project to build a joint power station in Moatize area, Nyusi said.

Source: A Bola