War in Cabo Delgado forces Mozambique to “redirect resources”

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War in Cabo Delgado forces Mozambique to “redirect resources”

3:43 CAT | 29 Sep 2020

Screen grab; Miramar

The Minister of Economy and Finance of Mozambique yesterday said in Maputo that the armed conflict in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, would compel the government to “redirect resources” in order to support “the war effort”.

“One of the problems we have [to address] is redirecting the few resources [available] to the war effort,” Adriano Maleiane said on the sidelines of a meeting with the deputies of the Parliament’s Planning and Budget Commission (CPO).

Maleiane pointed out that the executive must “invent” a margin of funding for the Defence and Security Forces in a context of scarcity of financial resources.

“Already the few resources that we are allocating to the social areas are not enough and we have to invent – that’s the term – more resources to [allocate to] the war. In fact, it’s very bad,” the minister said.

The war in Cabo Delgado was causing damage to the country’s economy and to families, he added.

“It is bad in all aspects [that Cabo Delgado is at war],” Minister Maleiane said. “There is no war that does the economy good.”

The northernmost coastal province of Mozambique, which borders Tanzania, faces a humanitarian crisis, with more than 1,000 dead and 250,000 internally displaced after three years of armed conflict between Mozambican and rebel forces, some of whose attacks have been claimed by the jihadist Islamic State group, but whose origins overall remain unclear.