No.295, 17th March 2005
President Armando Guebuza said on
9 March that it is complex and difficult to make changes in governance, because
there will always be resistance from those who benefited from the status quo,
and support from those who believe they will benefit from change.
President Guebuza, who was speaking in the southern city of Matola at the start
of a training seminar for members of his new government, warned against "opportunists
and those who foment intrigue" who might try to make use of changes to
take revenge on anyone held responsible for what may have happened to them in
the past.
The seminar follows a five day meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling
Frelimo Party, which ended on 7 March, and approved the five year programme
of President Guebuza's government, aimed at putting into practice the promises
made by Frelimo during last year's election campaign.
President Guebuza strongly defended the practice of "criticism and self-criticism".
In Frelimo, he said, far from dividing the membership, this practice promoted
the cohesion of the party, and strengthened the determination of each militant.
Changes undertaken by Frelimo, he added, are successful because those who carry
them out know the party's history and its ideals and, above all, are inspired
by the aspirations of the Mozambican people.
President Guebuza recalled that, between 1997 and 2003, the number of Mozambicans
living in absolute poverty fell from almost 70 per cent of the population to
about 54 per cent. While this was encouraging, absolute poverty remained the
major challenge facing the government. "We in Frelimo want more, our people
want more, and Mozambique can give more", said President Guebuza. "From
the people we have obtained a clear and unequivocal mandate to continue to make
changes in the country, and to continue fighting against poverty".
"For us, the battle cry is the fight against poverty, and that is the call
that some people need, to climb out of the lethargy into which they have fallen
and to join us", he stressed.
"When we say ''no to the spirit of apathy and drift, no to red tape, no
to crime, no to corruption'', what we are saying is ''yes to creativity, and
to a greater love for the people''", the President declared. It was also
"yes to governmental efficiency and effectiveness, yes to tranquillity
among citizens, yes to the credibility of our institutions".
President Guebuza warned that those who expect a revolution or drastic reforms
that result in a different Frelimo might end up frustrated. "Let us change
Frelimo, so that it measures up to itself", he said. "Let us change
the country so that it measures up to our ideals, measures up to what our people
long for".
The Central Committee of Mozambique's
ruling Frelimo Party on 7 March elected Armando Guebuza to the post of President
of the Party. In the secret ballot vote, 156 of the 161 Central Committee members
present voted for Guebuza, while five showed their opposition by casting blank
ballots.
The post of President of Frelimo fell vacant because of the resignation of Joaquim
Chissano on 4 March. Chissano made it clear that he was standing down in favour
of Guebuza, who was elected President of Mozambique in December's general elections.
Thus Frelimo maintains its tradition, established at independence in 1975, that
the posts of President of the Republic and president of the party should be
held by the same person.
President Guebuza's previous party post was that of general secretary. Since
the Central Committee did not elect a new general secretary, technically Guebuza
now concentrates both top party jobs, president and general secretary, in his
hands.
The Central Committee also elected Prime Minister Luisa Diogo to the 15-member
Political Commission, effectively the party's executive. She fills the vacancy
left by the death of Rafael Maguni in February 2004. Diogo was elected with
152 votes in favour, while nine members of the Central Committee cast blank
ballots.
The vacancy left on the Frelimo disciplinary body, the Verification Commission,
by the appointment of Teodato Hunguana to the Constitutional Council, the body
that validates election results, was filled by former deputy agriculture minister
Joao Carrilho, who was elected with 155 votes in favour, five blank ballots
and one spoilt ballot.
The Central Committee also decided to propose to the next Party Congress that
Chissano be appointed Honorary President of Frelimo. This is a post envisaged
in the Frelimo statutes, but which has never been filled.
Frelimo is due to hold its next congress in 2007, but it could well be brought
forward a year.
Mozambique's new government, emerging
from the December general elections, is determined not only to continue the
programmes inherited from its predecessor, but to speed things up, declared
Prime Minister Luisa Diogo on 15 March.
Giving her first press conference since the new government took office in February,
Diogo said it has concluding drafting its five year programme, and sent it for
approval to the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic. Only after
the Assembly approves, or alters the programme, will the government's plan and
budget for 2005 be finalised.
Diogo described the five year programme as honouring the promises made by the
ruling Frelimo Party in its election campaign. "Our central objective remains
the same", she said. "It is the combat against absolute poverty".
That combat would be waged both in the countryside and in the cities - Diogo
thought that a problem with the anti-poverty approach so far was "certain
aspects of urban poverty were not given due importance".
The Prime Minister said the five year programme lays a new stress on technical
and professional education "so as to make people more employable, and also
provide them with skills for self-employment". Diogo said that where programmes
had guaranteed funding - such as the projected new bridge over the Zambezi at
Caia, as well as the bridge over the Limpopo at Guija, and the reconstruction
of the bridge over the Lugela river in Zambezia province - the government would
push them ahead as speedily as possible.
"The point is to start rapidly", she stressed. "The money is
there, the contracts have been signed. So when will the contractors start their
work?" Where no funding had yet been obtained, the government would approach
its partners on the basis of the five year programme.
One such unfunded project was for a new power line southwards from the Cahora
Bassa dam in Tete province. Currently southern Mozambique receives Cahora Bassa
power, but via South Africa, which involves paying a rental to the South African
power utility Eskom for the use of its lines. "We want a transmission line
to the south that doesn't go through neighbouring countries", said Diogo.
"We want power that is produced and distributed within the country, and
we will make every effort to finance this".
As for Mozambique's protracted efforts to secure control over Cahora Bassa,
Diogo expected negotiations with Portugal to resume in the near future. The
dam operating company, Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB), is still 82 per
cent owned by the Portuguese state, with just 18 per cent in Mozambican hands.
Mozambique wants a controlling stake in the dam (as was envisaged under the
initial agreements with Portugal in 1975), but the obstacle always invoked by
successive Portuguese governments is HCB's huge debt to the Portuguese treasury
(which Lisbon puts at some $2 billion).
Negotiations were interrupted in late 2004, when the right-wing Portuguese government
of Pedro Santana Lopes fell, and early general elections were called. This resulted
in a huge victory for the Portuguese Socialist Party, led by Jose Socrates,
which for the first time ever enjoys an absolute majority in the Lisbon parliament.
"As soon as the new government took office in Lisbon, we thought conditions
were ready to resume negotiations", said Diogo.
A new negotiating team has been formed, headed by Energy Minister Salvador Namburete.
Diogo said Namburete has been working with Finance Minister Manuel Chang (who
headed the negotiating team of the previous government, when he was a deputy
minister), to make a fresh proposal to Portugal.
Diogo pointed out that other major projects in the Zambezi valley, notably the
construction of another dam at Mepanda Ncua, some 70 kilometres downstream from
Cahora Bassa, were in limbo, awaiting a decision on the future of Cahora Bassa,
which was "the anchor" for the development of the entire region.
Prime Minister Diogo told the press
conference that the desirable ceiling for public sector wages should be not
more than 7.5 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP),.
She was answering a question from AIM on the impact of IMF attempts to hold
back the government wages bill. Would the IMF ceilings not make it impossible
to recruit the education and health staff needed to meet the objective of eradicating
absolute poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals?
"We have to decide how much goes on wages, how much goes on investment,
how much goes on infrastructure", said the Prime Minister. "Looking
at it in macro-economic terms, the government's wage bill should not come to
more than 7.5 per cent of GDP. The government shares this position with the
Bretton Woods Institutions". Expanding the wages bill thus depended on
continued growth in Mozambican GDP.
Diogo insisted that the government is committed to recruiting more staff for
the public sector - not just to replace those who retire or, increasingly, those
who fall victim to AIDS, but to undertake a real expansion of the education
and health services, and the police force. The current targets, she said, were
an annual recruitment of 6,000 new teachers, 8,000 literacy workers, and 1,900
health workers.
Minister of Public Works, Felicio Zacarias, on 16 March warned that he expects
the rehabilitation of the stretch of the country's main north-south highway,
running from Namacurra to the Ligonha river, in the central province of Zambezia,
to be undertaken to a high standard.
He was speaking at the ceremony where contracts were signed for the work with
the Portuguese company Tamega, and the Italian concern, CMC di Ravenna. This
stretch of the road is 375 kilometres long, and the contracts are valued at
78.8 million euros (about $105 million).
Zacarias had some harsh words to say about bungled road construction in the
past. He told the two companies that Mozambique has made large investments in
roads - but these have not always produced the results expected, because of
shoddy work be contractors.
"I call on Tamega and CMC di Ravenna to do your work with high quality",
he said. "And I call on the supervisors to follow the work properly".
And nobody should try to pull the wool over his eyes. "The fact that I'm
an agricultural engineer won't stop me from examining the work on the ground
to see whether the materials used are appropriate or not", Zacarias said.
This is precisely what Zacarias did in his previous job as governor of Sofala
province - personally inspecting building work, and denouncing contractors who
tried to cut corners.
The European Union is providing the greater part of the funding for this rehabilitation
(60.5 million euros), with the rest coming from the Mozambican state budget.
Work should begin next month and take two years, ending in April 2007.
Supervision of the work is in the hands of the German engineering company Gauff
and the Mozambican National Roads Directorate (ANE).
The British based charity Oxfam intends
to impress upon European leaders that changes made to the European Union's sugar
regime could have dramatic consequences - for good or for bad - on poverty in
Mozambique and other third world sugar producers.
The honorary president of Oxfam International, the former Irish President Mary
Robinson, told a Maputo press conference on 5 March that the current proposals
of the European Commission, involving a very sharp cut in the guaranteed price
offered to sugar producers, are "not helpful for the next few years of
the developing and processing of sugar in Mozambique".
Robinson was on a three day visit to Mozambique, during which she toured the
sugar plantation and mill at Xinavane in Maputo province, and spoke to leaders
of the peasant association who sell their cane to the factory.
"I saw how positive sugar production is for communities", Robinson
said. "The peasant farmers explained to us how important sugar is to them
as a cash crop. I was struck by how hard they work, and how worried they are
about the price".
She pledged that Oxfam would impress upon European parliamentarians and governments
that reform of the EU sugar regime "should address the needs of Mozambique
and other developing countries".
EU policy makers, she added, should understand "the link between what they
do on trade, and development in Mozambique. In the EU there is a tendency to
separate trade and development issues. But it's perfectly clear from our visit
that the trade decisions taken will impact either very positively or very negatively
on development, and on poverty".
The director of Mozambique's National Sugar Institute, Arnaldo Ribeiro, told
the reporters that the domestic market cannot absorb all of Mozambique's sugar
production. The domestic market consumes about 150,000 tonnes of sugar a year,
but in 2004 the four functioning sugar companies produced 210,000 tonnes.
The best prices available currently are those paid by the EU, but Mozambique's
quota for the EU, Ribeiro said, is only 7- 8,000 tonnes a year. Much of the
remaining Mozambican sugar has to be sold on the world market, where the enormous
distortions caused by agricultural subsidies means that sugar prices "are
often lower than the costs of production, even for the most efficient producers".
Mozambique also accesses the EU market through the "Everything But Arms"
(EBA) initiative, and Ribeiro said that, under EBA, "we were told that
by 2009 we would have unrestricted access to the European sugar market, but
we assumed that would be at the current price level".
The benefit of access would be cancelled out by sharp price reductions. The
proposal now under discussion is for a 20 per cent cut in the EU guaranteed
price this year, and a 33 per cent cut in two years. "This would have a
devastating effect", warned Ribeiro.
The Mozambican sugar companies currently employ about 26,000 people - which
means that around 100,000 Mozambican citizens are directly dependent on the
sugar industry. But employment could be expanded in the companies now operating,
and the two that are still paralysed (at Luabo and Buzi in the centre of the
country) could be revived, creating another 20,000 jobs - but only if there
was a guaranteed market for the extra sugar produced.
Ribeiro said that Buzi and Luabo have already been privatised - but the new
owners will not rehabilitate them and produce sugar without a guarantee that
they can sell it at a reasonable price.
Mozambique and other Least Developed Countries "are trying to influence
the European Commission and European public opinion so that the reforms do not
take on this drastic form", said Ribeiro. "We want a reform that is
pro-development".
He was convinced that Mozambique could be among the ten most competitive sugar
producers in the world, selling sugar at $220 a tonne FOB - but that required
improvements in Mozambican ports and in the road and rail infrastructure. "We
need time to do this", said Ribeiro. "We want the EU to give us at
least another eight years".
Jan Nico Scholten, the chairman of AWEPA (Association of European Parliamentarians
for Africa), who was accompanying Robinson, warned that the EU sugar policy
"risks increasing poverty". "We shall mobilise our network of
parliamentarians, in the national parliaments and in the European parliament,
to campaign for a better sugar policy", he pledged.
Cotton producers are faced with a
collapse in the world market price for cotton - bad news indeed for both the
Mozambican peasant farmers who grow the cotton, and for the concessionary companies
that provide the farmers with inputs and buy their crop.
According to the latest figures from the Mozambican government's Cotton Institute
(IAM), the price of first grade cotton fibre has fallen from a high point of
76 US cents per pound last year, to just 51 cents a pound now (a decline of
almost 33 per cent).
The fall in prices is a particularly severe blow because cotton production has
been on the increase in Mozambique. Indeed, according to the IAM, the 2004 cotton
harvest exceeded all expectations. The amount harvested was 93,205 tonnes, as
against 54,114 tonnes in 2003 - a rise of 72 per cent. But most of this cotton
is still in Mozambique. Around 18,800 tonnes have been exported, which brought
in earnings of around $21,000.
This year cotton producers are likely to see their earnings fall sharply. In
2004, the companies paid 5,000 meticais per kilo for first grade cotton and
3,500 meticais a kilo for the second grade variety (at current exchange rates
there are about 19,000 meticais to the US dollar).
The fall in the world market price, and the appreciation of the metical against
the dollar over the last few months put pressure on the companies to reduce
the price they pay to the producers. The world cotton market is distorted by
the massive subsidies that some governments, notably that of the United States,
offer to their cotton farmers.
The Mozambican state came closer
to a complete withdrawal from commercial banking when, on 4 March, the government
signed the deeds handing over its remaining shares in the Austral Bank to the
bank's workforce.
Austral was once known as the People's Development Bank (BPD), and was state-owned.
Under pressure from the World Bank and the IMF, privatisation was hastily arranged
in 1997, without looking too closely at the credentials of the new owners.
A Mozambican-Malaysian consortium took over 60 per cent of the bank, leaving
the state with 40 per cent. The new owners then proceeded to rename the bank
and to ruin it. By early 2001, Austral was collapsing under a mountain of bad
loans. The private shareholders pulled out and the government had to set about
rescuing the bank.
In December 2001, a second privatisation took place, with the South African
group ABSA buying 80 per cent of the shares in Austral. Now the government has
sold its remaining 20 per cent to the newly established company "Uniao,
Sociedade e Participacoes SARL", which represents the Austral workers.
The deeds were signed by the chairman of Uniao, Teodoro Wate, and by the chairman
of the board of the government's Institute for the Management of State Holdings
(IGEPE), Daniel Tembe. The workers now own 630,000 shares in the bank, each
with a face value of 100,000 meticais (about $5).
According to Wate, Uniao will operate on a business basis, and will count on
administrative support from ABSA.
The state continues to hold shares in about 250 companies, some of which it
is now selling off.
A preferential trade agreement has
been implemented between Mozambique and Zimbabwe, under which tariff and non-tariff
barriers are eliminated on a wide range of goods from both countries.
The agreement excludes a variety of sensitive goods: sugar, beer, soft drinks,
tobacco products, motor vehicles and firearms, ammunition and explosives.
From Mozambique's viewpoint the most important product excluded is sugar. The
Mozambican sugar industry enjoys protection in the domestic market, with a surtax
levied on all legal imports of sugar. Mozambican sugar companies in the past
have complained bitterly at the unfair competition posed by sugar smuggled in
from neighbouring countries, particularly Zimbabwe.
Goods covered by this agreement must enter or leave Mozambique at the four main
border posts - Machipanda and Espungabera in Manica province, Chicualacuala
in Gaza, and Cuchamano in Tete.
Demining operations in Mozambique
in 2004 cleared more than 12.1 million square metres of land mines, thus surpassing
the target of clearing 10 million square metres a year.
According to the report on the Mine Action Programme for 2004, presented by
the government's National Demining Institute on 11 March to the annual meeting
with demining operators, during the year 18,539 mines and 2,712 items of unexploded
ordnance were removed and destroyed. This compares with clearing an area of
7.1 million square metres in 2003. In that year, 10,613 mines and 13,599 items
of unexploded ordnance were removed.
The report attributes the sharp increase in the number of mines removed in 2004
to operations by the British NGO, the Halo Trust, in the northern districts
of Mueda and Nangade. These mines were planted by the Portuguese army in the
1960s and early 1970s.
Humanitarian demining organisations only cleared 5.29 million square metres,
a 2.1 per cent decline on the 2003 figure.
The Mozambican armed forces (FADM) cleared a mere 14,031 square metres, a drastic
fall of 98.2 per cent, when compared with the 795,419 square metres cleared
by the army in 2003.
This was more than compensated for by the huge increase in commercial demining
operations, which cleared 6.83 million square metres compared with only 858,000
in 2003. Much of the commercial operations consisted of demining along the main
north-south highway between Maputo and Inhambane province.
Inhambane is believed to be the most heavily mined province in the county, and
accounted for 5.28 million square metres of the area cleared in 2004. It was
followed by Maputo and Zambezia provinces, with 3.58 million and 810,000 square
metres cleared respectively.
Further investigation on the ground has led to a sharp reduction in the area
thought to be affected by land mines. In 2003, 1,054 areas, covering a total
of 527,846,784 square metres, were suspected of containing land mines. 583 villages
were thought to be affected.
Land mine clearance, plus eliminating from the list areas found to contain no
mines, led to a reduction of the suspect sites by the end of 2004 to 551, covering
246,187,303 square metres, and affecting 267 villages.
In 2004, the land mine programme was funded by 21 donors who disbursed a total
of $14.5 million. The Mozambican government provided 178 billion meticais (about
$9 million at current exchange rates) to fund the activities of the IND over
the 2003-04 period.
Last year the IND recorded 13 land mine incidents in 2004, in which three people
were killed and 27 injured.
The publicly owned Mozambique ports
and railway company (CFM) signed in Maputo on 14 March the contract that formalises
the hand over of the management of the port of Quelimane, capital of Zambezia
province, to the new company, Cornelder-Quelimane.
Cornelder-Quelimane, is owned jointly by CFM and Cornelder de Mozambique, the
company which is already running the port of Beira. 70 per cent of Cornelder
de Mocambique is owned by the Dutch company Cornelder.
Cornelder-Quelimane took over the management of the port under a lease that
will run for the next 25 years. This management includes maintenance of the
port's infrastructure and equipment, cargo handling, and rendering of services
to all ships in all terminals.
According to CFM the money necessary for this undertaking, 23 million euros
(about $30 million), was granted by the German government, through the German
development bank, KFW.
The work in terms of infrastructure includes the rehabilitation of the office
buildings and warehouses, of the mooring sites, of the power and water supply
and sanitation systems, and the installing of new fire fighting equipment.
The signing ceremony was witnessed by CFM and Cornelder Mozambique managers,
and by representatives of the German government.
The president of the Mozambique United
Front (FUMO), Jose Samo Gudo, has denied that his party ever considered abandoning
the Renamo-Electoral Union coalition, of which it has been part for the last
six years, and through which it was represented in the 2000-2004 parliament.
Reacting to an article published by "Noticias" on 28 February, Samo
Gudo denied that FUMO has decided to abandon the coalition. He insisted that
FUMO was determined to remain faithful to the coalition's statutes.
Samo Gudo said that FUMO would hold a congress in July, but that he will not
be standing for another term of office as party president. He has led FUMO for
the last five years, and was its sole member of parliament.
Samo Gudo also denied that at any moment any member of FUMO had accused him
of dragging the party into the coalition without their consent.
Despite Samo Gudo's denials, it is widely known that FUMO is split in two, with
one faction supporting Samo Gudo, and the other led by lawyer Simeao Cuamba,
and engineer Pedro Loforte, who claim that they have sacked Samo Gudo.
This latter faction is against FUMO's membership of the Renamo coalition.
This is a condensed version of the AIM daily news service - for details contact aim@tvcabo.co.mz
Mozambique News Agency
c/o 114 Stanford Avenue Brighton BN1 6FE UK.
Tel: +44 (0) 7941 890630,