
Maputo, 20 Jan (AIM) – Mozambique’s new Finance Minister, Carla Louveira, in her first contact with the media, has put the losses to the state from last year’s unrest and rioting at 42 billion meticais (about 657 million US dollars).
The riots arose from the general election results announced by the Constitutional Council on 23 December. The results were widely regarded as fraudulent and the Council itself admitted that they were riddled with irregularities.
Former presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane called for peaceful demonstrations against the results, but the unrest soon degenerated into destruction and looting.
Speaking to reporters shortly after she had taken office on Saturday, Louveira said that the final calculations of the 2024 tax collection were still being undertaken, but the initial indications were of losses amounting to 42 billion meticais.
These losses cannot possibly all result from the post election crisis. Indeed, the worst month for rioting, December, only accounted for losses of 14 billion meticais.
Louveira’s figures only covered losses to the state. The losses suffered by private businesses, some of which were completely destroyed and are unlikely to reopen, were much higher.
The losses undermine the government’s projections for 2024. Cited by the independent newssheet “Mediafax”, the Minister said “in this financial year, we shall have to fight to recover economically”.
A further challenge, Louveira added was the need to restructure payment of the public debt, which has been compromised by the widespread destruction of public and private assets, and by the deficit in tax collection.
This, she said, makes it crucial to create new lines of financing just to pay the current expenses necessary for the functioning of the Mozambican state.
The government is now waiting to see whether staff of the public administration will go on strike, as threatened last week. The pretext for the strike is that the outgoing Prime Minister Adriano Maleiane said, last Tuesday, that the State will be unable to pay the traditional New Year Bonus this year.
The bonus, known as the 13th month, since it is equivalent to an extra month’s payment of the basic wage, has come to be regarded as a right, although there is nothing that legally obliges the government to pay it.
The new government is backtracking on Maleiane’s words. After the first meeting of the new Council of Ministers (Cabinet) on Saturday, the government spokesperson, Inocencio Impissa, the Minister of State Administration, said the government is continuing to weigh up the possibilities of paying the “13th month”, despite the damage caused by December’s looting.
(AIM)
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